SSH into networked computer on Mac OSX

March 21, 2009

I’ve written occasionally about my experiences with Ubuntu Linux. Since I got accustomed to the system, everything has been overwhelmingly positive, especially when it relates to using Ubuntu for programming.

Predominantly, I program in PHP and Ruby on Rails, depending on the project. For these, with the ways that I use them, Ubuntu has proven itself infinitely superior to any other development environment I’ve used.

That said, recently I inherited a MacBook Pro as my work computer. Naturally, I have fallen in love with it, and am using it for design work at home as well. Mac OSX, of course, has a UNIX foundation, and thus is much better for my kind of programming than Windows is, and works very well with most development.

However, particularly with Ruby on Rails applications, I still find Linux to be more intuitive with the management and storage of the apps. With the last one I was working on, I sought a way to ssh into my Linux system through the Mac, so that I could have the best of both worlds. I couldn’t find anything in particular in various searches, so I asked about it in a forum post.

Thanks to the community there, I have an answer. Essentially, there are a couple of steps.

Make Ubuntu a Mac File Server
This is the hardest part, as it involves a few steps on both the Linux system and the Mac system. That being said, the instructions in the linked post are fantastic. They are well-written and easy to follow.
Note the name of the Ubuntu system when it is mounted (for example: ubuntu-desktop).
Ensure that sshd server is installed on the Ubuntu system. sudo apt-get openssh-server
If the Ubuntu system’s name is ubuntu-desktop, use the command username@ubuntu-desktop.local in the Mac’s Terminal, and you can log in.