Introduction

Franklin Bristow

In ancient times 🦖 nobody had their own machine. Nobody had their own machine because computers were too big and/or too expensive for any one person to have. That meant that most people interacted with computers remotely — they sat down at something called a “terminal” which had a keyboard and some kind of a display device like a typewriter (but more usually a monitor).

Now everyone has their own computer. In fact, everyone has many computers, some physically attached to you (like your watch). But… we still can and do interact with other computers remotely. You’re interacting with a computer remotely right now by looking at this course schedule!

This week we’re going to do some more advanced remote interaction: we’re going to connect to computer systems at the university using a protocol called SSH, and we’re going to start taking a look at running commands on remote systems, and editing text files on remote systems, all using a “terminal emulator”.

By the end of this week you should be able to:

Connect to a remote computer using ssh.
Create, rename, delete, and inspect folder structures on the command-line.
Navigate folder structures on the command-line.
Use a command-line text editor to open, inspect, edit, and save a file.
Complete commands and filenames with tab completion.
Transfer files between your computer and a remote computer.
Use the handin command in the U of M CS UNIX environment.