πŸ“š Week 02 Lab - Preparation

Author

Dr. Jon Cardoso-Silva

To ensure you have a smooth πŸ’» Week 02 lab session, the most important thing you can do is ensure you have an app called ssh installed on your favourite shell.

Apple logo macOS users

macOS normally comes with ssh installed. Just open the terminal and type:

ssh -V

This will print out the version of SSH you have installed. For example:

(base) jon@LSE-DSI DS105 % ssh -V
OpenSSH_9.0p1, LibreSSL 3.3.6

That is it. This confirms your shell is ready to connect to the cloud machine we will use in the lab.

Windows logo Windows users

We insisted on getting you to install Ubuntu on your Windows machine because the cloud machine we will access this week is a Linux machine, with bash as the default shell. However, if you can’t get WSL working, you can still use ssh on Windows.

These are all the different ways you can use ssh from your Windows machine:

Option 1. Using the WSL and Ubuntu

If you managed to install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in the πŸ“‹ Getting Ready page, you should have ssh installed. Just open bash and type:

ssh -V

This will print out the version of SSH you have installed. For example:

(base) jon@LSE-DSI DS105 % ssh -V
OpenSSH_9.0p1, LibreSSL 3.3.6

Use this same shell to connect to the cloud machine we will use in the lab.

Option 2. Using Git Bash (without WSL)

If for any reason, you couldn’t get WSL working, you can try this alternative route.

  1. Install Git for Windows (Among the options, the one you probably need is the 64-bit Git for Windows Setup).
  2. Important: you will find many configurations when you start the installer. Check the option that will install Git Bash. This will give you a bash shell without the need to install WSL.
  3. Once you have it installed, open Git Bash and type:
ssh -V

This will print out the version of SSH you have installed. For example:

(base) jon@LSE-DSI DS105 % ssh -V
OpenSSH_9.0p1, LibreSSL 3.3.6

Use this same shell to connect to the cloud machine we will use in the lab.

Option 3. Using PowerShell

The latest versions of Powershell seem to come with ssh installed. Just open PowerShell and type:

ssh -V

This will print out the version of SSH you have installed. For example:

(base) jon@LSE-DSI DS105 % ssh -V
OpenSSH_9.0p1, LibreSSL 3.3.6

Use this same shell to connect to the cloud machine we will use in the lab.