Macintosh OS X Terminal

Macintosh OS X Terminal is a program built into OS X. It includes a program called SSH which will allow you to make secure connections to UNIX computers. Terminal uses a command-line interface, so you'll use the program by typing commands at a prompt. When you're running Terminal, you're using UNIX to access your Macintosh rather than the more familiar Aqua graphic interface. 

Related Links

O'Reilly Books on Terminal

Usage Instructions

  1. Locate Terminal in your hard drive in Applications: Utilities. If you will be using it frequently, you may want to drag its icon to your Dock so you can start it from there in the future.
  2. To connect to CUNIX, type the following in the terminal window:

    ssh [email protected] where uni is your own UNI, e.g. abc1234.

    Type your Columbia-associated UNI password at the CUNIX password prompt. You'll be logged into CUNIX and can run UNIX programs in the normal way.

Terminal includes the standard UNIX utilities scp (Secure Copy) and sftp (Secure File Transfer Protocol). If you are familiar with the UNIX command-line interface for scp and sftp, you can use them that way. 

File Transfer Software

SFTP is used to transfer your files to the Columbia Web server. Some popular Secure FTP (SFTP) clients are WinSCP for Windows, and Cyberduck for Macintosh OS X.

Set your host to cunix.cc.columbia.edu.

When uploading files, it is important to set the file permissions correctly so they can be seen on published web pages. Your SFTP software probably has a feature which will allow you to set default permissions when you upload files.

NOTE: FTP to www.columbia.edu and wwwgrp.columbia.edu is no longer supported. Instead, please connect to cunix.cc.columbia.edu with a secure FTP program.