You can login to the BIC by using a secure, encrypted ssh session and connecting to host login.bic.mni.mcgill.ca. This host acts as a login gateway. No other hosts at the BIC permit external logins.
While logged inside the BIC, all workstations and some of the core servers can be accessed using a ssh connection. Note that all data servers have restricted access.
As for workstations, ssh connections from McGill subnets at large, McGill wireless and of course the BIC DHCP subnet are allowed. Security is enforced via PAM and fail2ban, so if you fail to type in a valid password, after the 3rd attempt within 10 minutes, the IP address from your incoming connection will be blackholed for 10 minutes. This is also true for login.bic.mni.mcgill.ca.
If you would like to connect to your personal workstation remotely, we support the use of x2go, using login.bic.mni.mcgill.ca as a proxy server. Click here for more info on How To Login to a Workstation. Note that you cannot connect to login.bic.mni.mcgill.ca directly while using x2go.
Linux/MacOS
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Use secure shell (SSH).
For these platforms, ssh should be installed by default, so just start up a shell and type:
ssh login.bic.mni.mcgill.ca
As noted above, we support the use of x2go (for workstations only).
Windows
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Use PuTTY.
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One can also use Cygwin. Read Dale’s HowTo.
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x2go as well (for workstations only) - see links above.
Web browser (Google Chrome only)
One can also run a ssh client inside a web browser - one is available for the Google Chrome website.
Type ssh in the search box and it should show up as the first item; the rest is very point-and-clicky.
The client provides an xterm-compatible terminal emulator and stand-alone SSH client. It uses Native-Client to connect directly to ssh servers without the need for external proxies.
