W. M. Keck Observatory
Access to external sites from Keck

The CARA intranet is separated from the internet by a firewall which severely restricts the exchange of data with the outside world. The following sections describe the vagaries of accessing external computers from within Keck.

FTP access from Keck to external sites

You can use FTP from any Keck computer to access an external computer. However, please DO NOT use ftp to transfer your Keck data back to your home institution. Our network connection is not intended to carry such high data loads, and all Mauna Kea observatories have been asked to prevent the abuse of our link. Facilities are provided to save data to Exabyte tape or CD-ROM.

FTP access into Keck from external sites

The only machine accessible via FTP from the outside world is our anonymous ftp server ftp.keck.hawaii.edu. Note that you cannot access your data disks via FTP once you leave Keck.

RLOGIN/RSH/RCP access to external sites

The standard Unix commands rlogin, rsh and rcp are disabled at Keck due to security concerns. You cannot use these commands to access external computers. Use telnet or ssh instead.

SSH access to external sites

You can use the ssh or ssh1 utility to open a secure remote shell on an external computer if that computer also runs a secure server. However, if using the ssh1 version of the command, you must be sure to use the -P flag to disable use of privileged source ports. If you don't include this flag, ssh1 will hang.

To determine which version of ssh you are using, type

ssh -v
and check the first line of output.

SCP access to external sites

You can use the scp or scp1 utility to open a secure copy client on an external computer if that computer also runs a secure server. However, if using the scp1 version of the command, you must be sure to use the -L flag to disable use of privileged source ports. If you don't include this flag, scp1 will hang.


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Last modified: Wed Mar 29 16:28:49 HST 2000