Setup

Throughout ECE 264, you will be working via an SSH terminal connection to eceprog. You can connect to this address:

eceprog.ecn.purdue.edu.

Overview

(Windows) Install and configure PuTTY
Connect to eceprog
Install the course Bash configuration files

(Windows) Install and configure PuTTY

From the PuTTY download latest release page choose the 64-bit MSI (‘Windows Installer’).
Run PuTTY and create a saved session as follows:
1. Session » Host Name » yourUsername@eceprog.ecn.purdue.edu
2. Connection » Data » Terminal-type string » xterm-256color
3. Window » Appearance » Font » Lucida Console
4. Window » Behavior » Full screen on Alt-Enter
5. Window » Colours » Allow terminal to use xterm 256-colour mode » (make sure it is checked)
6. SSH » X11 » Enable X11 forwarding
7. SSH » X11 » X display location » localhost:0
8. Session » Saved Sessions » 264
9. Session » Saved Sessions » click Save
Create a shortcut on your desktop.
1. Right-click your desktop. » New » Shortcut
2. Enter "C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load 264

Note: The first two "Window" configurations are optional, but recommended. The options related to X11 won't be important until/unless you want to use the DDD debugger later in the semester.

Connect to eceprog

Linux / Mac: Open your console (aka "Terminal") and enter ssh yourUsername@eceprog.ecn.purdue.edu. It should prompt for a password.

Windows: Double-click the shortcut you just created. You should get a PuTTY window asking for your password.

When prompted for a password, enter password,Duo code where password is your Purdue password, and Duo code is a 6-digit code you get from the Duo app on your phone. For example, if your password were H3!!0Wurld and the Duo app gave you the code 264375, then you would enter H3!!0Wurld,264375 .

Other password formats (e.g., password,push or password,Boilerkey PIN) might also work, but password,Duo code is the only way that has worked consistently for Prof. Quinn.

Install the course Bash configuration files

This step will install our starter .bashrc and .bash_profile configuration files in your home directory. You can preview them here: .bashrc, .bash_profile Among other things, these ensure that you can access the 264get and 264submit commands, which you will need for every assignment. They also set up a few shortcuts, which we think you will find useful when working in bash (your command line on eceprog) and vim (programming editor).

If you already have a .bashrc and/or .vimrc file that you like, just add these two lines to your .bashrc:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/shay/a/ece264/24sp/bin
alias gcc='gcc -g -std=c11 -Wall -Wshadow -Wvla -Werror -pedantic'

If you do that, you can ignore the instructions below, though you will not have some of the shortcuts and other niceties we will be referring to in class.

Enter the following commands to install starter files provided by the instructor. If you are using PuTTY, you can paste these in by right-clicking the screen.
cp -i ~ece264/24sp/.bashrc ~
cp -i ~ece264/24sp/.bash_profile ~
cp -i ~ece264/24sp/.vimrc ~
chmod 600 .bashrc .bash_profile
The first three commands copy the files from a shared directory. The last command sets the permissions so others can't see their contents.
Log out and log back in to let your .bashrc changes take effect.
Create a new directory for your 264 files. We will assume your directory is called 264.
mkdir 264
cd 264
The first command creates a directory called 264. The second command changes into it.

SSH keys (OPTIONAL)

To avoid going through the multi-factor authentication on your phone every time you log in, you can install an SSH key on the server. You will still need multi-factor authentication to log in the first time and set that up. After that, you can log in using an SSH key that you create and save on your computer. You will still need to enter a password, but you can avoid going to your phone each time.

You can even set things up so that you don't need to enter the password for the SSH key every time. ( has it set up so that enters the password for the key once each time starts computer. After that, opening a new connection to eceprog is immediate—no password required.

This guide from IU has good instructions for setting up SSH public key login so that you can avoid going through multi-factor authentication each time. If you don't like that one, you can search around and find another. To enter your SSH public key into the authorized_keys file, if you are not yet comfortable with Vim, you can use nano (nano authorized_keys). In In PuTTY, you can paste from your local clipboard using either Right-Click, Shift-Right-Click, or Shift-Insert.

For eceprog, you need a key of type Ed25519 or ECDSA. Either will work. Ed25519 is newer. RSA or DSA will not work. On Windows, you can create an Ed25519 or ECDSA key using PuttyGen (comes with the PuTTY package).

Be sure to give your key a strong password. Otherwise, anyone who got ahold of your private key file would be able to log into your account on eceprog. They could do more damage than you might think. Although PuTTYgen will let you create a key with a weak password—or even no password at all—that would be irresponsible, both for your own personal information, and also for Purdue's network security as a whole. If you don't want to type the password every time, use an SSH agent, such as Pageant (comes with PuTTY).

You will save the private key on your computer. On eceprog, you will create a directory called .ssh in your home directory (if it doesn't already exist). Inside that directory, you will create a file called authorized_keys. Inside that, you will paste your public key. On Windows, you then modify your profile in PuTTY to use your key (SSH → Auth → Private key file for authentication).

Updates

1/10/2024

Password instructions were updated.
Server name was updated to eceprog.ecn.purdue.edu.