Accessing Meteorology Computers

A Guide

An assortment of computers can be found within the Atmospheric Science program. Although there are several different kinds of machines, they are all connected and you can access every machine from any one terminal. This is true anywhere on campus.

Working on the meteorology machines requires having access established on them, even though for most work you will likely be using your ISU Net-id login name and password. See Dave Flory or Daryl Herzmann for instructions on how to do this.

To access any machine, regardless of where you are sitting, follow one of the procedures below. After doing these steps, you should be able to work at your machine as though it was a different machine. Commands to type in are in bold face.

Remember to logout from both your originating machine and your "ssh" machine when done!

From a classroom PC running Linux:

1. Login to the machine using your ISU Net-id username and password (e.g., the name and password you use to check email on the ISU systems).
2. A windowing environment will appear, with a row of icons at the bottom of the window.
3. In the lower left corner should be a red hat. Hold the mouse pointer down over it. A menu will pop up.
4. Move the pointer to "System Tools", causing a new menu to pop up.
5. Select "Terminal" from the new menu to open a Terminal window.
6. When done, log out by popping up the "red hat" menu again and selecting "Log Out". Make sure you wait and answer the confirmation question before going away!

From a your own PC at home running Windows

Follow procedures as for the classroom PCs, but in either case connect to the machine metl11.geol.iastate.edu.

NOTE: You need to have the appropriate software loaded on your machine to run either SSH or X11 applications (see below).

1. If figures and plots are not needed, click on an icon with "SSH" in its name. Othwerwise, open your X11 application if you have it. When prompted for a machine to connect to, give one of the following: metlNN.geol.iastate.edu, where NN=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 or12 (e.g., metl8 is an acceptable choice).
2. Then give your ISU Net-id login and password.

If you do not have SSH software already

Download the ssh client. Open a web browser (e.g., Netscape or Internet Explorer) and go to this site:

ftp://ftp.ssh.org/

Click on the 'pub' directory. Click on the 'ssh' directory. You should see a list of items, one of which should be:

SSHSecureShellClient-3.2.9.exe

Click on this item to download the ssh client. Once downloaded to your machine, double click to begin installation. Note: This will install both the ssh (secure shell) client and the sftp (secure file transfer) client. The later will allow you to transfer files to the meteorology machines in a secure manner.

Once installed, double click on the 'SSH Secure Shell Client' to open ssh. You can use the 'Quick Connect' option to connect to the meteorlogy computers. Click 'Quick Connect' once. Fill in the hostname of a meteorlogy machine, say 'metl11.geol.iastate.edu', for example, and your user name. Click 'Connect'. You will be asked to enter your password. Upon successful entry of your password, you will be connected to the meteorology machines.

If you want X11 (x-windows) software
You will need to purchase it. I have been told that Hummingbird Exceed is good, but it is expensive (about $370).

Go to ISU Geological & Atmospheric Sciences Department homepage

Go to ISU Meteorology Course Catalog