Accepting the best-tux Host Key in Windows

How to manage terminal connections on all CAE Linux workstations using the same hostkey

A host key is a string of letters and numbers that identifies the machine you connect to, and gets stored on your computer.  When connecting after you accept the host key, your computer will check that machine's host key versus the one it has recorded. If not, you will receive a warning that you might be connecting to a different machine than intended.

We use best-tux.cae.wisc.edu as the preferred login for remote connections, and no matter which tux workstation you connect to using best-tux, it will use the same host key and so you only need to accept it once on a given computer. If you connect to another workstation, you will have to accept the new host key.

To accept a host key:

1. Open the ssh program you use to connect, and connect to best-tux.cae.wisc.edu
  
   Putty

2. Click Open.
3. If you have never connected to best-tux from this workstation, you will see the following message: 

    Host Key

Click Yes to save best-tux's host key.
If you have already saved the host key for best-tux on this workstation but the host is presenting a different key, you'll see this message:

    

This means that either the server administrator has changed the host key, or you have actually connected to another computer pretending to be the server. If you receive this message, please click Cancel and contact the CAE Help Desk, as the best-tux host key will normally not change.



Keywords:tux securecrt putty remote terminal host key ssh sftp security breach   Doc ID:8104
Owner:Noel K.Group:Computer-Aided Engineering
Created:2008-08-19 19:00 CDTUpdated:2020-06-08 10:25 CDT
Sites:Computer-Aided Engineering
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