The login service at UiO (SSH)

1.1???2FA Caching

Both login.uio.no and rlogin.uio.no caches the 2FA authentication for a period of 36 hours. If you log in from the same client (IP address) within the caching period 2FA is not required, as it has been pre-approved.

Note that the 2FA cache follows the host. As login.uio.no and rlogin.uio.no are each comprised of two hosts, and which of the two you're connecting to is random when using the name "login.uio.no" or "rlogin.uio.no", you 2FA may be required. This happens when you log into the one where you haven't logged in previously during the last 36 hours.

2.1???Setting up 2FA

For login.uio.no, which uses 2FA via Microsoft, see Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) in advance

For rlogin.uio.no, which uses 2FA via a local UiO service, set up 2FA by pointing a browser to Password services and choose Local 2FA.

2.2???Logging in via ssh

When 2FA is set up as described above, logging in should work. You will open a terminal, e.g. powershell in Windows, and give one of the following commands:

ssh username@hostname
ssh hostname -l username
ssh hostname

In the first two variants, we specify the username. This is necessary if the logged in username is different from the UiO username. These to variants do exactly the same. Which variant to use is a matter of personal preferance. If the logged in username on the client is identical to the UiO username, the third variant may be used.

If the connection happens from outside of the UiO network, 2FA is required. This will look like this for login.uio.no:

$ ssh username@login.uio.no

This host utilizes two-factor authentication via Microsoft Azure.
If you are using the Microsoft Authenticator mobile application, you
should have received a notification which you need to accept in
order to proceed. If you are using One Time Password (OTP) codes,
enter the OTP code now.

If you have set up 2FA at Microsoft to use OTP codes instead of push notifications, the following text will also appear:

Enter Your Microsoft verification code

Approve the push notification via Microsoft Authenticator, og type in the OTP code and press enter, to proceed. The service will then ask for a password:

Password:

Write your password and press enter, and you will be logged in.

For rlogin.uio.no things look slightly different:

$ ssh username@rlogin.uio.no

This host utilizes two-factor authentication via a local RADIUS service.
Set up your two-factor codes at [https://passord.uio.no/]

Verification_Code:

Write the OTP code, and it asks for the passwork like for login.uio.no as described above.

3.1???Simple usage of the sftp service

The sftp service can be used for sftp, scp [2] and sshfs. In all examples we use login-sftponly.uio.no. If you want, you can use any of the aliases instead:

• sftp.uio.no
• scp.uio.no
• sshfs.uio.no

It doesn't matter which of these you use, or to what. Use any of them or the real name login-sftponly.uio.no.

sftp

This service has functionality that mimics that of normal FTP, and can be used directly. Example:

$ sftp username@login-sftponly.uio.no
sftp> ls
[... lists remote files ...]
sftp> get fil1.txt
Fetching /uio/kant/uio-u1/username/fil1.txt to fil1.txt
fil1.txt                          100%   13KB   4.8MB/s   00:00
sftp> lls
[... lists local files ...]
sftp> put fil2.txt
Uploading fil2.txt to /uio/kant/uio-u1/username/fil2.txt
fil2.txt                          100%  451   522.8KB/s   00:00
sftp> quit

In the example we use ls to list remote files, and we then use get to fetch a file from the server. We then list up local files with lls and use put to upload a file to the server.

scp

Notat

Only with newer openssh clients, in which scp uses the SFTP protocol

This command is well-known for regular SSH users. It is a simple way of transferring files. Example:

$ scp username@login-sftponly.uio.no:fil1.txt .
fil1.txt                          100%  13KB  224.2KB/s   00:00

$ scp fil2.txt username@login-sftponly.uio.no:
fil2.txt                          100%  451   456.4KB/s   00:00

In the example we first fetch a file from the server, and then we upload another file to the server.

sshfs

In order to mount your UiO home directory as a file system locally via SSH, you can use sshfs. Example:

First we'll create a folder as a mount point. This is only needed if it doesn't already exist:

$ mkdir uiohome

Then we can mount via sshfs:

$ sshfs username@login-sftponly.uio.no: uiohome

Your UiO home directory is now available under the folder "uiohome", and can be accessed and used as a normal file system locally. When you no longer want to have it mounted/available, the file system can be unmounted:

$ umount uiohome

This service allows sftp connections only.