Linux Logins

Logins are done for the purpose of terminal sessions or doing file transfers.

Where to Login

Logins require a Sociology Linux account. Three systems for which user logins are available are listed below by hostname. Logins are allowed from anywhere and a login to any of these hosts always takes you to your Linux home directory.

• login.soc.duke.edu - a general purpose login system for email, file transfers, editing and password management

• verstehen.soc.duke.edu - the primary compute server for statistics and data management

• paradigm.soc.duke.edu - the secondary compute server for statistics and data management

How to Login

Logins require the use of SSH (Secure Shell) connections from your client PC to the server host. OIT provides several SSH software packages for this purpose. We recommend that Windows users install F-Secure software on personal machines. The F-Secure product installs two applications. The F-Secure SSH Client provides a terminal function, and the F-Secure SSH FTP Client provides a file transfer facility.

• Terminal sessions - A terminal login provides a command line prompt from which commands are executed or applications launched. The underlying basis of command line use is a shell program that executes the commands you enter. The shell is a programming environment that can be customized and extended through user-written scripts.

• File transfer sessions - This is based on the Secure File Transfer Protocal (SFTP), which sets up a network connection between your PC and one of the host Linux systems. This is displayed in a graphical interface, with navigable local [PC] and remote [Linux] directory structures represented in separate screen areas. Easy drag and drop file uploads and downloads are performed between these areas.

How to Display Linux Graphical Applications

A Windows PC does not have the native ability to display Linux graphical applications like SAS or Stata. This requires a PC X-Windows server. OIT distributes a product called X-Win32 for this purpose. Install the latest version to get best performance and reliability.

After installing X-Win32, make sure your SSH terminal client is configured to tunnel X11 connections.

X-Win32 must be preloaded on your PC before using a Linux graphical application.

Mac and Linux PCs do not require installation of SSH or X-Window software. These are native components of these systems.