Xwin32 and Fsecure Ssh

William and Mary has recently purchased a site license for X-Win32 and Fsecure ssh. This software allows Windows users to connect to Unix machines and to display X applications on their desktops. The site license allows for it to be installed on any campus machine, as well as for off-campus students and faculty to install it on their personal machines for use connecting with machines on campus. Modems are a bit slow for most X applications, but cable modems tend to work well.

The software may be downloaded from the College's Software Repository. Xwin32 and Fsecure Ssh have separate installation files, and step-by-step instructions are included for installing and configuring each package.

An alternative to FSecure Ssh is putty, which is freely available, and also has the virtue of fitting on a floppy disk for those who may want to carry an ssh client with them.

The instructions should get everything working. Here are a few helpful hints:

X-Win 32 Hints

• You may find you have a problem with backspace not working in some X applications. If this happens, go into the Xconfig keyboard editor, select Us.xkb, pick the BS key, change the "shifted" status to NoSymbol, then save that mapping as us-mine.xkb. Exit the keyboard editor, then change from automatic keyboard selection to us-mine in the input configuration panel.

Fsecure ssh Hints

• You must exit fsecure ssh to save preference changes for them to take effect in other windows. Amusingly, if you make a preference change, then open a new connection, the new connection doesn't have the preferences changes yet.
• When you make a connection to a machine you haven't connected to with fsecure ssh, you will get a message that the "host fingerprint" is unknown. This is OK, as long as it only happens the first time you connect to a machine.