Student Organization Web Service
Secure Access to Your Content
One of the main questions we receive is, "How do I get my web site to the server?" or something similar. Let me try to answer this question.
First, you need to know the hostname of the server to put your data on. This hostname will be the same as your web site hostname. So, if your web site is available at mysite.students.mtu.edu then your hostname for SSH, SFTP and FTP access will be mysite.students.mtu.edu as well.
If you want to, you can use the File Manager available in your site's control panel to do all of your file editing, copying, renaming, etc. needs. However, most users develop offline and upload the data to the site. So, how do you do that?
To do that you need to know how to communicate with the server. Most people are familiar with Telnet and FTP, but most people don't know that these services are not secure. Fortunately, there are secure alternatives to Telnet and FTP. We use secure shell and secure FTP here, more commonly known as SSH and SFTP.
"Okay, but I don't have a way to use ssh or sftp on my computer. So now what do I do?" Good question! SFTP uses SSH so, usually, you only need to find an SSH client and it will give you both ssh and sftp capabilities. There are several free and/or non-commercial use products available for your use. The one we recommend for Windows is provided by www.ssh.com and can be downloaded from here:
Others include:
PuTTY
TeraTerm Pro
SSH Plugin for TeraTerm Pro
TeraTerm Pro does NOT provided sftp capability.
Recommendations for Apple/Mac products have come in. So far the
following has been recommended:
Mac OSX users can use the pre-installed OpenSSH program if they wish.
Other recommendations can be sent to studentorg@mtu.edu.
"Alright, so I have the SSH or SFTP client. Where do I get a loginid or
password?" Your student organization should have a loginid and
password. If you have no idea what your organization's loginid or web
site is please visit the "RSO Database" link, on
your left, and see if the information there can help you. If there is
no information there that is helpful it should be updated, once the
information is known.
If all else fails, send an email message to studentorg@mtu.edu.