or, how to tell other computers to do cool things
all users are required to use an ssh keypair for login, or will be required to proceed with manual account recovery with ~ben or another admin. drop a line to sudoers@tilde.team or hop on irc for assistance.
ports 22, 80, 443, and 2222 are available for ssh.
the primary ip has 80 and 443 in use by nginx.
use ssh.tilde.team to reach the secondary ip and use 80 and 443 for ssh.
so, for example, you can do:
ssh -p 443 user@ssh.tilde.team
ssh user@tilde.team # this uses port 22, which can be blocked on some networks
tilde.team's fingerprints are:
ECDSA: SHA256:R3qNfKIF3IiXhKCbFX6rCKl73yzexi9Wodsow6XFres
ED25519: SHA256:FErDF9upMkSg/yzw0N7i2o971LT/Bocd1qrDDpE315I
RSA: SHA256:JR5oQPfC34ogd/SeIcMpaGR8BiBo4ciI5xWyBVCjj5o
the key fingerprints are in dns as sshfp records as well, which you can check against
by setting VerifyHostKeyDNS to yes in your ~/.ssh/config.
you can check the records yourself with the dig tool like this:
dig sshfp tilde.team
** if you just want to get right to a tutorial you can skip over this background info**
while tilde.team is accessible on the web and features lovely web pages written by its users, most interaction with tilde.team takes place inside the machine that runs tilde.team as opposed to via web forms that have an effect from outside tilde.team's computer.
this is what sets tilde.team apart from most other online communities. you connect directly to another computer from yours alongside other people and then write your web pages, chat, and play games all via text-based interfaces right on tilde.team's computer.
prior to the web (which debuted in 1995) this is how pretty much all computer stuff got done. you connected directly to a machine (usually over a direct, physical phone line) and did your work there.
for a long time, people used a tool called
telnet to connect to other computers.
these days we use a tool called ssh.
ssh is a text-based tool that provides a direct connection from your computer
to another. ssh is an acronym that stands for secure shell. the shell part
refers to the fact that it's a text-based tool; we use the word shell to refer
to a text-based interface that you give commands to. the secure part refers
to the fact that, when you're using ssh, no one can spy on your connection to
another computer (unlike the old telnet command).
why bother with all of this? passwords are really insecure and hard to manage. using keys makes life easier for you, fair user (your account is less likely to be hacked) and for me, your humble sysadmin (less administration than passwords).
SSH supports a handful of types of cryptographic keys. The most used are RSA and the more modern Ed25519.
RSA is the de-facto standard and is supported everywhere (just choose a big enough key like 4096 bits to be secure). Ed25519 is designed to be faster and smaller without sacrificing security, so is best suited for embedded devices or machines with low resources. It's supported on tilde (and really on any modern system) but you may find older systems which do not support it.
Below you'll find instructions to generate either type (or both if you want).
Keep in mind that these instructions leave your private keys unencrypted in your local hard disk. So keep them private; never share them. A good solution is to provide a password for them at creation time, but this implies entering a password any time you used them (impractical) or use something like ssh-agent (a bit more complex)
We don't have documentation for this (yet) so either go with no password keys, or ask on IRC (#team) for help.
pick your fighter: [mac] | [windows] | [linux]
open terminal (it's in /Applications/Utilities)
create your .ssh directory:
mkdir -m 700 ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -a 100
if you press enter to accept the defaults, your public and private key will
be located at ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 respectively
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
copy the output of the last command and paste it in the sshkey field on the signup form (or email it to ~sudoers if you already have an account)
once ~ben or another admin approves your signup, you can join the tilde.team
open terminal (it's in /Applications/Utilities)
ssh to tilde.team:
ssh username@tilde.team
where username is your username (~ben would use ssh ben@tilde.team)
windows 10 1809 or later has openssh built in, so you no longer need to install third-party tools. if openssh is not enabled, please see microsoft's documentation on openssh in windows.
open your new shell
create your .ssh directory
mkdir .ssh
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -a 100
if you press enter to accept the defaults, your public and private key will
be located at %UserProfile%\.ssh\id_ed25519.pub and %UserProfile%\.ssh\id_ed25519
respectively
type %UserProfile%\.ssh\id_ed25519.pub
copy the output of the last command and paste it in the sshkey field on the signup form
once ~ben or another admin approves your signup, you can join the tilde.team
open powershell (right click start button and select "windows powershell")
ssh to tilde.team:
ssh username@tilde.team
where username is your username (~ben would use ssh ben@tilde.team)
older versions of windows unfortunately do not come with openssh, and you will need to install a third-party tool. you may choose from any of the following options:
open your new shell
create your .ssh directory
mkdir .ssh
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -a 100
if you press enter to accept the defaults, your public and private key will
be located at ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 respectively
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
copy the output of the last command and paste it in the sshkey field on the signup form
once ~ben or another admin approves your signup, you can join the tilde.team
open terminal (location will vary depending on your choice)
ssh to tilde.team:
ssh username@tilde.team
where username is your username (~ben would use ssh ben@tilde.team)
there are a lot of linux distros, but ssh and ssh-keygen should be available
in almost all cases. if they're not, look up how to install ssh for your distro.
~/.ssh directorymkdir -m 700 ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -a 100
if you press enter to accept the defaults, your public and private key will
be located at ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 respectively
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
copy the output of the last command and paste it in the sshkey field on the signup form
once ~ben or another admin approves your signup, you can join the tilde.team
open a terminal (this depends on your distro)
ssh to tilde.team:
ssh username@tilde.team
where username is your username (~ben would use ssh ben@tilde.team)
this tutorial is based on and uses parts of the tilde.club ssh primer and the tilde.town ssh guide.