Biomedical Computing Group
Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics

connecting-mac-system

Instructions for connecting to BMI resources or your office desktop computer from a macOS laptop or desktop.

Microsoft Remote Desktop Application Icon

GUI to a Windows system

Microsoft Remote Desktop Servers list of Windows Remote Desktop Servers and a list of applications available on the servers.

You will use the Microsoft Remote Desktop app to connect to Windows systems from a Mac
Edit connection config - empty

  1. Open the Windows Remote Desktop application
  2. Click the + symbol to create a new saved session
  3. Enter the hostname of your destination into the ‘Connection name’ and ‘PC name’ fields
  4. Leave the ‘Credentials’ fields blank
  5. optional – Uncheck ‘Start session in full screen’
  6. Uncheck ‘Use all monitors’
  7. Close this ‘Edit Remote Desktops’ window, and connect by double clicking on one of the newly created session listed under My Desktops
  8. Enter your username and password when prompted. ( This will be your Windows domain account credentials, and does not require a specified domain name before the username. This may be the same as your unix account credentials )
Edit connection config - empty
Edit connection config - empty
*If you are having trouble authenticating to a particular server try prefixing your username with “bcg\”. For example “bcg\rose”. This will make sure you are logging into the “BCG” domain rather than into the local server.

*If you are not on a Biostat network (144.92.73, 128.104.134 or 128.104.206) then you need to run the GlobalProtect VPN client in order to connect to these servers. For some collaborators in other departments who for some reason can’t run GlobalProtect, we can add their static IP number to the firewall rules so they can have access.

Cyberduck Connect using GUI for sftp.

Edit connection config - empty

Edit connection config - empty

Terminal Application Icon

Command Line Only

To a Linux system

  1. ssh -Y -l username adhara.biostat.wisc.edu
  2. ssh -Y -l username mi1.biostat.wisc.edu
  3. ssh -Y -l username mi2.biostat.wisc.edu
  4. ssh -Y -l username nebula-7.biostat.wisc.edu
  5. $ xterm

Connect with a GUI…

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Screen\ Sharing.app
vnc://name.biostat.wisc.edu/ using an application called Screen Sharing

Screen Sharing Application Icon

To a macOS System

  1. Screen Sharing

    2. Remote Desktop to a remote macOS machine GUI

  2. XQuartz

    3. connect with an X11 interface

  3. Screens

    4. connect from an iPad to a remote macOS machine GUI

  4. NoMachine

    5. connect to a remote linux server GUI

NoMachine Application Icon

To a Linux system

To connect to a Linux desktop or server with a GUI:

  1. NoMachine
  2. Protocol: SSH, Host: linuxrdt.biostat.wisc.edu, Use the system login, Authentication method: Password, Don’t use a proxy, Done
  3. XQuartz

xQuartz X11 Application Icon

Test X11, XQuartz

  1. Open Terminal and type at the prompt xclock to confirm x11 XQuartz is working locally.
  2. Then try ssh -Y -l username adhara.biostat.wisc.edu
  3. and when connected type $ xterm If this works then XQuartz is working correctly.
  4. if the last test failed, it may be necessary to reinstall XQuartz. This is especially true after some macOS updates. The file changes are listed below.
  5. /etc/ssh/ssh_config
  6. User ssh config file gives a per host, per user overrides in file ~/.ssh/conf some examples below. reference. This conf file assumes X11 installed through macPorts.

    Host *.biostat.wisc.edu
    XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth
    #ServerAliveInterval 60
    #ServerAliveCountMax 3
    #TCPKeepAlive yes
    #ForwardX11Timeout 596h
    #UseKeychain yes
    #ForwardX11Trusted yes

    # XAuthLocation added by XQuartz (http://www.xquartz.org)
    Host *
    XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth
  7. /etc/ssh/sshd_config

    AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys
    UsePAM yes
    AcceptEnv LANG LC_*
    Subsystem sftp /usr/libexec/sftp-server
    XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth
    # make the next two changes if you want to ssh to your machine and run x apps. most users do not need to make the following changes.
    #X11Forwarding yes
    #X11DisplayOffset 10
  8. User ssh config file, per host adjustment overrides in file ~/.ssh/config some examples below. reference.

    Host *.biostat.wisc.edu
    XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth
    #ForwardX11Trusted yes
    #UseKeychain yes
    #ServerAliveInterval 60
    #ServerAliveCountMax 30
    #User username
    #TCPKeepAlive yes
    #Port 22
    #Protocol 2
    #ForwardX11 no
    #ForwardAgent no
    #AddKeysToAgent yes


    Host nebula-7.biostat.wisc.edu
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
    UseKeychain yes
  9. ssh manual page
  10. ssh_config manual page
  11. ssh-agent manual page
  12. sshd_config manual page

To a Mac system

Mac systems support SSH connections similar to Linux, so you will use the same procedure detailed above for command line only connections to a Linux system.

Edit connection config - empty

Mounting a home directory

To connect to your biostat home directory with a GUI:

  1. SMB

    smb://squid.biostat.wisc.edu/homedir # Everyone not SDAC
    smb://ulthar.biostat.wisc.edu/homedir # SDAC
    smb://yuggoth.biostat.wisc.edu/ # /comp and /proj
     mounting a biostat home directory with an SMB connection. This only works with a wired desktop machine. Laptops need an alternate solution.
  2. sshfs requires a local directory to act as a mount point such as /Users/username/mount/homedir. Then, with a staticVPN connection, use a command similar to the following: sshfs -o auto_cache username@nebula-5.biostat.wisc.edu:/ua/username /Users/username/mount/homedir uses ssh to mount a file system using FUSE
  3. another example /Users/username/mount/homedir. Then, with a staticVPN connection, use a command similar to the following:
    # sshfs user@host:/dir /tmp/ssh -o auto_cache -ovolname=ssh
    # verify a directory exists such as /Users/username/mount/sdac and with an active staticVPN connection use a command like:
    sshfs username@sdac-2.biostat.wisc.edu:/ua/sdac /Users/username/mount/sdac -o auto_cache -o volname=sdac
     uses sshfs to mount a FUSE file system using
  4. Note: software required includes OSXFUSE and sshfs. OSXFUSE has a system preference. Updates to FUSE may be done there. Munki may push out updates.

    $ sshfs --version
    SSHFS version 2.5 (OSXFUSE SSHFS 2.5.0)
    OSXFUSE 3.8.2
    FUSE library version: 2.9.7
  5. Note: going from linux to mac, use the command fusermount

 

With a Poor Internet Connection

If you are trying to connect from an environment with a poor internet connection (e.g. hotel wifi or slower DSL), you may wish to use more bandwidth tolerant methods.

limited network usage strategies

Terminal connections will work on slow connections. A GUI such as NoMachine may also help.

  1. Terminal
  2. NoMachine
  3. Connect to your desktop machine, and issue commands from there.

Applications on macOS are located in
/Applications,
/Applications/Utilities,
:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
:/opt/X11/bin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/usr/local/mysql/bin
:/usr/local/git/bin:/usr/X11/bin
( searched left to right, first found wins, so MacPorts, /opt… packages
can override the default applications in /bin… )