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College of Engineering > Computing Resources > Computing Best Practices > Mac Remote Desktop

Providing Remote Desktop Access

Through SSH on a Mac

Why me and why now?

CAE has been charged to implement the College of Engineering Network Security Policy . As
part of the security measures, the College has set up a firewall, which blocks access to the
College's network on certain ports.

Those wishing to access their office (or lab) computer can do so via "Windows Remote
Desktop", although not directly. The method described below provides a secure (encrypted via
SSH) method to gain access to a remote desktop (computer) behind the College's firewall.
This procedure is called tunneling.

What you need

An Apple Computer running a current version of Mac OS X 10.*

Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for the Mac (obtain it from

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/)

A CAE account to log into any CAE Unix computer

Setting up the SSH Tunnel

1. Start the Terminal program by opening the Finder program, selecting the Applications
item, and then on the right side of the window, expand the folder that is labeled Utilities .
In this folder, double-click the Terminal program:

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2. A terminal window will now appear on your desktop that looks something like the following:

3. Unlike Windows, the command to setup an SSH tunnel requires only one command line
entry. In the example below, we are tunneling the remote desktop port on the local
machine, through the gateway to the Remote Desktop port on the fictitious remote server
“remotedesktop.engr.wisc.edu” (enter the name or IP address of your computer in place of
this name). This name is resolved from the remote gateway machine, so it can be a
hostname not visible to the user machine.

ssh -L 3389:remotedesktop.engr.wisc.edu:3389 username@sun-10.cae.wisc.edu

What does this command string mean? Let us break it up into its' pieces so that it makes
sense:

ssh -L The "-L" switch tells SSH that it is going to be setting up a tunnel to
transport other traffic. NOTE: The case is important! If you were to use the
lowercase letter "l", you would be specifying a login name, not a tunnel.
3389: Is the local port that we want to re-route from your local computer and put

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in the SSH tunnel

remotedesktop.engr.wisc.edu:3389 Is the destination computer and port that we
want to connect to on the other side of the SSH tunnel (this is where all of the traffic
that is sent to port 3389 on your local computer is being sent)
username@ Is your CAE username, or the name of your account on the unix
computer that you are connecting to.
sun-10.cae.wisc.edu Is the Unix computer that you are connecting to with SSH
that will act as the gateway behind the firewall (it is the other end of the SSH
tunnel). You do not have to use sun-10 as the tunnel, any CAE Unix computer will
perform just as well.
4. If it is your first time connecting to the computer on the other end of the SSH tunnel, you
will be presented with a notice that tells you that the authenticity of the other computer
cannot be established (in this case, sun-10). If you have never connected to this computer
before, this is okay. Type in yes and then enter your CAE password that matches your
account name.

5. After successfully logging into the Unix computer, you can minimize the Terminal window
(click on the yellow button). You do not need to type anything more in there, you just
need to have the connection open.
6. Start your Remote Desktop program as usual. Instead of typing in the name of the
computer that you want to connect to, type in 127.0.0.1 and then click on Connect . This
will connect you to the computer that was specified in the Terminal window between the
3389's (in this case, the fictional computer remotedesktop.engr.wisc.edu ).

7. Viola! You are now connected to your Remote Desktop computer through an SSH tunnel!
8. After you are done using Remote Desktop, exit from the program as normal and then you
may close the Terminal window (or just type logout if you want to close the connection to
the Unix computer but leave the Terminal program open).

Copyright 2004 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

Date last modified: Wednesday, 15-Sep-2004 13:34:41 CDT
Date created: Tuesday, 22-Jun-2004

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Content by: oliphant@engr.wisc.edu

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