Oscar - Enhanced Security for Logins

Effective Thursday, June 17th, at 8 am, the login process for accessing Oscar via SSH will require either two-factor authentication (e.g., Duo) or VPN access. This means if you currently login to Oscar using your username and password, you will have the additional two-factor step to complete. Please see below for details.

Reason for change?

  • Enhance Oscar security

What’s the impact?

  • All existing SSH sessions & SSH Tunnels to ssh.ccv.brown.edu will be terminated at 8 am, June 17th
  • VNC sessions will remain unaffected
  • No downtime is required
  • Your running/pending jobs will not be affected

Technical details

Step 1:

  • must run: ssh-keygen -R "ssh.ccv.brown.edu"
  • you will be asked for a prompt enter: Yes
  • Note: this command is necessary one time only
  • Windows users - PuTTY: when PuTTY displays the warning message, click Yes to update PuTTY’s cache with the new RSA key

Step 2 - two options:

Option A: allows access from the public internet, no VPN required

Command: ssh <username>@ssh.ccv.brown.edu

Details:

  • Two-factor authentication (Duo) required
  • Brown password required
  • Brown VPN not required

Option B: allows for use of ssh keys (no password required), VPN required

Command: ssh <username>@sshvpn.ccv.brown.edu

Details:

  • Brown VPN required
  • Option to utilize SSH keys (Brown password not required)
  • DUO not required

Please follow this guide if you don’t have two-factor authentication (Duo) setup already.

Please follow this guide to set-up SSH key authentication (passwordless ssh). VPN required.

If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to us via support@ccv.brown.edu