CSLab SSH Gateway

The CSLab SSH Gateway at

gateway.cs.cityu.edu.hk

is a Ubuntu server for general access by all valid CSLab users using a regular SSH client.

This server is equipped with 96 CPU cores and 1.5TB of main memory. A single process can occupy as much as 128GB of memory.

Besides each user’s home directory, users can create their own folders on the ‘/public’ path. Each user can have up to 200GB of disk space on ‘/public’. Data backup is not available on ‘/public’. All files not accessed for 30 days will be removed automatically.

SSH terminal logon service

Users can log on to the terminal of the gateway server using any SSH clients

On Windows 10 Desktop, user can invoke the ssh command from PowerShell or CMD like

> ssh eid@gateway.cs.cityu.edu.hk

On macOS, users can invoke the ssh command from the Terminal App

SSH tunneling services

For use when users are outside the CityU campus and failed to connect to CSLab SSL VPN servers. The tunneling services only work on Windows 10 and MacOS desktop clients. Mobile devices are not supported. 

The use of an SSH tunnel is a two-stage process. Firstly, we use the SSH command to establish a tunnel from a Windows PC or a MacOS machine to the gateway server. Then we configure a specific application to use that tunnel. Different applications require different types of SSH tunnels. 

  1. Use as a SOCKS proxy for web browsers supporting SOCKS Proxy such as Firefox

    On Windows 10, open PowerShell or CMD to run the command

    > ssh –ND 8080 <eid>@gateway.cs.cityu.edu.hk

    to establish the tunnel. After login, the screen will freeze and the PowerShell or CMD must be kept on the screen for the tunnel to work. Then configure, say Firefox, to use the tunnel as SOCKS proxy. Set the SOCKS host to '127.0.0.1' and the port number to 8080 as shown below.

    And you can surf the web via the SSH tunnel

  2. Use as a tunnel for Remote Desktop Access to users' individual Windows desktops

    On Windows 10, open PowerShell or CMD to run the command

    > ssh –NL 33890:<remote_desktop_ipaddress>:3389 <eid>@gateway.cs.cityu.edu.hk

    to establish the tunnel. Then configure MSTSC to connect to localhost:33890 like,

    and you can access your individual Windows desktop.