Most csoft.net servers share the same basic sshd settings:

• SSH protocol version 1 and 2
• Authentication methods:
  • Password
  • Pure RSA (v1)
  • Public key (v2)
• Strict ~/.ssh owner/permission checks
• Privilege separation
• Keep-alive
• Secure FTP (sftp)
• Data compression
• Hardware cryptographic acceleration (OpenBSD/FreeBSD servers only).

Suppose that your account is hosted on lilly.csoft.net, the command below will bring up a password prompt (assuming you are using password authentication):

  # Log into the yourname account at lilly.csoft.net.
  $ ssh -l yourname lilly.csoft.net
 
  # Alternate user@host form.
  $ ssh yourname@lilly.csoft.net
  
  # Execute a command on the server.
  $ ssh yourname@lilly.csoft.net du -hs www

Included within OpenSSH is a program which permits the secure copying of files from the local to the remote computer and, of course, conversely, the program is scp. Some elementary command syntax follows.

  
  # Upload to
  scp file1 [...] [user@server:file2]
  
  # Download from
  scp [user@server:file1] [...] file2
  
  # Note that wildcard characters are also allowed for remote filenames,
  # but they must be quoted as appropriate.
  

The following command uploads a local file named glue.html into the ~/www/ directory on the server:

  $ scp glue.html myname@lilly.csoft.net:www

Multiple files can be uploaded at once:

  $ scp *.html myname@lilly.csoft.net:www

Downloading works in a similar fashion:

  $ scp myname@lilly.csoft.net:foo.tar.gz .

If you would like a FTP client style interface, use sftp:

  $ sftp myname@lilly.csoft.net

There are also graphical clients such as gFTP.

Public key authentication may be accomplished via SSH by merely appending your public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the server.

  # Copy the public key to the server.
  $ scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub myname@lilly.csoft.net:mykey.pub
  
  # Add the key to the authorized keys database.
  $ ssh myname@lilly.csoft.net cat mykey.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

If you cannot find ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub on your machine, you can generate one using the ssh-keygen(1) command:

  # Create a version 2 DSA key with an empty passphrase.
  $ ssh-keygen -t dsa -N ''

Note: Under no circumstance and for excruciatingly obvious reasons should the files ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_dsa be copied over to your account on the server or any other remote computer, as these are your private SSH keys.

• OpenSSH - Free implementation of the SSH protocol suite