Using OpenSSH as a basic shell client

You have a number of client options if you're looking to access a shell on a system running an SSH daemon.

How to do it…

If you are connecting from another *nix system, such as Linux or Mac OS X, you can launch a terminal and use the SSH command-line tool from OpenSSH:

• A free graphical SSH client called PuTTY is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows. PuTTY provides you a terminal on the remote system rather than providing any form of local shell access. Windows binaries and the sources to build *nix clients can be obtained at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/.

• Various SSH clients are also available for Android and iOS devices.

How it works…

The OpenSSH client available on the terminal from systems similar to *nix is the simplest approach. Simply launch Terminal.app on your Mac or an xterm on your Linux system and run ssh username@host. If the username@ is omitted, then the ssh client will attempt to log in using your local username. The host...