LIS Course Notes - Authenticating remote users

LIS Course Notes - Accessing UB servers from off campus

First of all, on your main home computer, you should install the connectivity tools provided on the Tool Kit disk available from UBMicro. It contains all the software you will need - a secure shell client, a secure file transfer protocol client, a one click link to MyUB, and more.

If you are on the road, and using someone else's computer, you will need to authenticate yourself to the UB system. In order to use some UB computing services, you must either be on campus, or you must provide proof of membership and supply the IP number of the machine you're working from, say, a machine you're doing research on from England. To do this, you should telnet to the machine "remote.buffalo.edu" and allow the system to authenticate you. You might want to do this so as to read e-mail on the UB mail server using Pine, but you do NOT need to do this if you use Mulberry or WebMail, or if you have forwarded your UB e-mail to another account. There is a different authentication process for using site-licensed library databases. That process is explained at ublib.buffalo.edu.

	If you are using a Microsoft Windows machine, the first step is to click the "start" button at the bottom left hand of your Windows screen, and choose the "Run" option. When the Run dialog box appears, type "telnet remote.buffalo.edu" and touch OK. You can of course, use this procedure to telnet to any machine on the Internet, if you have an account there. On a Macintosh, Linux, or UNIX computer, open a terminal session and type at the prompt, "telnet remote.buffalo.edu", then touch Enter.
	If you need to upload files to your personal Web space on the UB servers, you can follow the above procedure to authenticate your home computer, then use the File Transfer Protocol (ftp) by opening a "run" dialog box and typing "ftp ubunix.buffalo.edu". This process is also useful if you want to download any e-mail you have left on the UB system. (You will need to know more about the UB file system before you can upload material to your public_html directory).
Another Tip:: You can also telnet and ftp from within a browser, such as Explorer, Netscape, or Moziilla, if you understand how URLs work.	Remember that if you are using a dialup connection, you will be assigned a "dynamic" or temporary IP number each time you conect to your Internet Service Provider. This means you must go through the authentication process each time you connect to your ISP if you want to use some of the UB campus services.