Use Terminal on a Mac to connect to Sitehost

To use the Terminal app in MacOS to log into your Sitehost account, first open the Terminal app located in Applications/Utilities. Then continue with the appropriate steps, depending on whether or not you're using an SSH key:

  • Without SSH key:
    1. If you're off-campus, you'll need to connect to the IU VPN (you'll be prompted for a secondary password).
    2. Enter the following command for the server you want to connect to, replacing username with your IU username:
      • Production Sitehost: ssh username@ssh.sitehost.iu.edu
      • Test Sitehost: ssh username@ssh.sitehost-test.iu.edu
    3. Enter your IU passphrase and authenticate with Two-Step Login (Duo).
    4. To switch to the Sitehost-test or Sitehost account you wish to access, enter become account, replacing account with the group username of the account you wish to assume.
    5. When prompted with "[sudo] password for your-username", log in with your IU passphrase.
    6. You will now be in the directory /groups/account/, where account is the account you chose to become.
    7. To exit a group account, use the exit command.
  • With SSH key:

    1. If needed, first refer to Generate and use SSH keys with Sitehost.
    2. Whether you're on or off-campus, you'll need to connect to the IU Groups VPN.

      If prompted to select a role, choose the IU-Linux-Hosting-Users option.

    3. Enter the following command for the server you want to connect to, replacing username with your group account username and SSHkey with the path to your private SSH key:
      • Production Sitehost: ssh -i SSHKey username@ssh.sitehost.iu.edu
      • Test Sitehost: ssh -i SSHKey username@ssh.sitehost-test.iu.edu
    4. Enter your SSH key password.
    5. You will now be in the directory /groups/account/, where account is the account you logged in with.
Note:
For more about Unix commands, see Introduction to Unix commands.