How to access UCSC Newsgroups from off Campus

by Foaad Khosmood

Spring 2007

UCSC does not allow off-campus IP addresses to access its news server (news.ucsc.edu). To get around this problem you have two choices:

1. SSH to unix.ic from home and use a text-based unix application, like tin, to access news groups.
2. Setup a tunnel or port-forwarding so that you can use graphical news application such as Mozilla, Outlook or Thunderbird from your own machine at home.

Below is one way of achieving method #2.

Required:

• A cruzmail/ITS account
• An SSH client (we will use Secure Shell Client for Windows in this example)
• A Newsreader program (we will use Thunderbird for Windows in this example)

Procedure:

• Setup SSH Tunnel
  • First, download an ssh client, if you don't have one. UCSC recommends Secure Shell Client, free for all students accessible from this page and available for Windows and MAC OS X. If you're not familiar with the basics of ssh, there's a tutorial for it available. Alternatively you can download this Java based client (Note, the applet that pops on on this page only allows access to the SOE servers, but you can download the application), or PuTTy for Windows.
  • Using the Secure Shell Client, make a profile for unix.ic filling in the following and then save.
    • Hostname: unix.ic.ucsc.edu
    • Username: [your its username or cruzmail account name]
    • port: 22
  • Go to Profiles -> Edit Profiles and choose the profile you created above. Click on the "Tunneling" tab. Click on the "outgoing" tab inside Tunneling. Click "Add", fill in the following Tunneling information and then save.
    • Display Name: "UCSC News" or whatever you want
    • Type: TCP
    • Listen Port: 1119
    • Allow Local Connections Only: CHECK
    • Destination Host: news.ucsc.edu
    • Destination Port: 119
  • Click on the profile from the profiles menu, and login using your password.
  • If you have a client side firewall, be sure to allow this connection.
  • At this point, we have made the tunnel that connects your local port 1119 to news.ucsc.edu:119 through your ssh connection with unix.ic.ucsc.edu. You can proceed to the next step and setup the news reader.
  • Alternatively, iyou can ssh into unix.ic.ucsc.edu by other means and set up the tunnel manually, by typing the line below. However you will have to do it every time you log in. And it is not as secure.

                      ssh -C -l maxb -L 1119:news.ucsc.edu:119 unix.ic.ucsc.edu

   

• Setup Newsreader Program
  • Set up a new newsgroup account. For Thunderbird, click on Tools -> Account Settings -> Add Account -> Newsgroup account and fill in the following information and then save.
    • Account name: news.ucsc.edu
    • news server: localhost
    • port: 1119
    • use secure (ssh): UNCHECK
  • Click on the news.ucsc.edu account name on the left navigation tree and manage subscriptions.
  • At this point you should be able to see all news gorups, subscribe and post news stories. Note: This only works as long as the ssh tunnel is active, so don't log out of ssh until you are done doing your news work. The setup works fine even if you are on campus, but you still need to ssh in first to establish the tunnel.

Other online guides:

• Max Baker's page at Warped.org
• Venkatesh Rajendran at SOE