SSH and Putty

Although you can manage a Unix machine by sitting at its keyboard, it's often easier to connect to it remotely. FreeBSD comes configured to allow you to use the SSH protocol to connect to it and manage it. If you want to do this from a Windows machine then you need an SSH client - one of the best is Putty.

When you run Putty you need to fill in the hostname or IP address of your machine and you then select SSH and click Open. You'll be presented with a screen asking you to login - login with the username and password you created in the first stage. This user doesn't have much privilege on the system; if you want to manage it then you need to use the root account. To do this type:

su root

you'll be prompted for your root password - enter it and you'll now be running as root. This is similar to using the runas command in Windows.

The root user has total rights over the system - you can destroy things using this account so take care! FreeBSD is configured to not let remote users log on as root - don't try to change this setting because it's there to help protect your system.

Putty is a standard Windows program and you can run multiple copies of it at the same time - this means that you can have multiple windows open to your FreeBSD box. This can be useful when you want to (eg) look at a directory listing in one window and edit a file in another while searching for some information in a web browser. You can, of course, install X on the FreeBSD box and use that to achieve the same effect but my server is in a cold, air conditioned room a long way from my desk so the Windows management route is easier!.