Connecting to wash

Wash is a computer sitting somewhere on campus. You’ll need to access it to do your assignments. This document will detail how to connect to Wash.

1. Be on Cornell campus, or use CU VPN.

To connect, you’ll either need to be on campus, or you’ll need to connect to Cornell’s Virtual Private Network (VPN). To install and connect to CU VPN:

  1. Navigate here and click the button that says "Install CU VPN."
  2. Select and follow the instructions corresponding to your OS.
  3. Navigate back to here and click the button that says "Connect to CU VPN".
  4. Select and follow the instructions corresponding to your OS.

2. Connect to the server.

If you're using Gate One:

  1. Open up a web browser, and navigate to wash.cs.cornell.edu. You should see a dark web page with some header text that says ``Gate One - Applications". Click the button beneath it, which is labeled ``Terminal: SSH".
  2. You should first be prompted for something called Host/IP or ssh:// URL, which will identify where you want to connect. You can just press enter and the default value (localhost, indicated in the square brackets will be selected, and will work.
  3. The next prompt will say Port. Don't worry if you don't know what a port is yet. You can just use the default value.
  4. Next it will ask for a User. Enter your assigned username. (You should receive this in an email before the first lecture.)
  5. Finally, enter your assigned password. The characters you type will not appear on the screen, but don't worry, they are really being entered.

If you're using ssh:

  1. In your terminal, type in ssh assigned_username@wash.cs.cornell.edu and hit enter.
  2. Enter your assigned password. The characters you type will not appear on the screen, but don't worry, they are really being entered.

Now you should be connected! Please let a TA or the instructor know if you run into any issues.

Public/Private Keys

You can always use your username and password to log into Wash. Another way people often log into computers remotely is with a public key. An administrator would need to set this up for you; if your instructor never talks to you about this, you can ignore this section.

If you do have a public key, you may find that the Gate One interface allows you to upload your private key. Please do not upload your private key to Gate One! It will be visible to everyone else using the service. Always keep your private key safe! If you ever run into a situation where you're worried about this, feel free to come talk to a member of the course staff.