A guide to AST337 IDL access from your Microsoft Windows machine

Rob Gutermuth, 02 Feb 2010

To remotely access to artemis from a Microsoft Windows machine, life is a little bit more difficult than for a Mac or Linux machine. You will need to install some software, specifically an X server and a decent UNIX terminal program with SSH support. There are many options for such things. For simplicity, I recommend using the following:

Download and install the Public Domain Release of Xming, a free X server for Windows.

If the above link dies at some point, simply go to the Xming project page and find the latest Public Domain Release for the above program.

Download and install PuTTY, a free UNIX terminal with SSH support for Windows. For ease of install, I recommend the link putty-VERSION-installer.exe, where the current version at the time of this writing is 0.60.

When this latter installer asks you if you want to associate some file types to PuTTY, click Yes or OK.

Once both are installed, set up a connection for artemis:

1) Run Xming.

2) Once Xming is running (look in the lower right "System Tray" for a big black X logo), run PuTTY. A PuTTY Configuration window should appear.

3) In the left part of that window (the white part), expand the Connection options (left-click on the plus sign to the left of the word "Connection") if it isn't already, then expand the SSH options under Connection similarly. Then click on "X11" in the SSH options. This should make the right side of the window (the gray part) show the "Options controlling SSH X11 forwarding".

4) In the right part of the window, left-click the check box next to "Enable X11 Forwarding" if it is unchecked. We need that box to have a check mark in it!

5) Back in the left part of the window, click on the Session option at the top. This should make the right side of the window (the gray part) show the "Basic options for your PuTTY session".

6) In the box below Host Name, enter:

<username>@131.229.84.250

...where "<username>" is the username that Rob made for you on artemis.

7) Make sure the Connection type toggle is set to SSH.

8) Type any helpful name for this session into the box under Saved Sessions and click the Save button to the right and below that box. For this example, say you called it "me@artemis".

Now it is easy to log in to artemis whenever you want to run IDL remotely:

1) Run Xming.

2) Once Xming is running (look in the lower right "System Tray" for a big black X logo), run PuTTY. A PuTTY Configuration window should appear.

3) Double-left-click on your helpful connection name (e.g. me@artemis) on the right side of the PuTTY Configuration window. Your terminal should appear in place of the Configuration window.

4) After a brief wait, you will be prompted for your account's password and then you will be on artemis and ready to work! Go to Step 3 (not a typo!) of the rest of the instructions for remotely using IDL on the computer artemis and continue.

Questions? Post them to the Moodle!