How do you access Balena?

Gaël Donval <g.donval@bath.ac.uk> and Tina Düren <t.duren@bath.ac.uk>

One of the immediate benefits of the command-line is availability: you can access Balena from literally any computer through a protocol called ssh (secure shell).

Technically, you need a program that can speak ssh, proper credentials (your university user name and password) and Balena’s address:

host name

balena.bath.ac.uk

port

22

There are actually many different programs you can use to connect to Balena: you only need to get one of them to work. The rest of the section is dedicated to demonstrating the log on process on a few of them. Fig. 14 depicts what a successful connection should look like.

../_images/ssh_success.png

Fig. 14 Successful connection to Balena.

Logging in from the University computers

University-managed Windows computers should be provided with a shortcut to Balena: you should be able to access it by searching for Balena in the Start menu. If not, start a program called Xming then launch Kitty. Balena should already be mentioned in the stored session list. Just click it and click Open.

Enter your university username and password (nothing will be displayed) and press Enter. If the connection was a success, you are all set up.

Note

There are other ssh clients you may prefer to use such as Putty, MobaXterm or mRemoteNG: feel free to try them if you wish.

Logging from your Windows computer

Download MobaXterm, install it and open it. Click Sessions ‣ SSH (top left corner). Type balena.bath.ac.uk in the Remote Host form, click Specify username, enter your university user name, bookmark those settings if needed and click Ok.

Logging in from your MacOS or Linux computer

If you are running on MacOS, either install MobaXterm and follow the indications described above or install XQuartz and launching it.

In both MacOS and Linux, just open a terminal and type the following replacing <username> by yours:

$ ssh -X <username>@balena.bath.ac.uk

Enter your password (nothing will be displayed) and press Enter. If the connection was a success, you are all set up.

Note

Very recent versions of Windows (Fall Creator Update or newer) include OpenSSH. To install it, head to Start ‣ Settings ‣ Apps and click Manage optional features under Apps & features. Click Add a feature and install OpenSSH Client. Once installed, you can type the aforementioned command in Windows PowerShell.