# External kista

External kistas support labs with a trusted way to transfer data from an external user located outside HUNT Cloud and into a lab in HUNT Cloud.

Note

This page describes the practical aspects of external kista transfers. Head over to our External kista FAQ for more information on the service itself.

# For external users

This section aims to give a technical description on how external users outside HUNT Cloud can connect and transfer data to our hosted SFTP service called external kista.

In short, external kistas are short-lived and hardened SFTP (opens new window) servers dedicated to transferring data. Please contact us if you require more information or run into trouble.

Technical requirements

As an external user outside HUNT Cloud, you will need to meet the following technical requirements to transfer data to/from a external kista.

All major operating systems such as Windows, MacOS and Linux are supported.

# Network connection to HUNT Cloud

Your host organization might need to open it's network firewall in order for your computer to connect and transfer to the external kistas in HUNT Cloud. Below are the network details that your organizational IT department will need add such a firewall opening:

  • External kista IP address: 129.241.176.121
  • Port range: 2000-2128
  • Protocol: TCP

We will select one specific port number during the kista deployment. This will be forwarded in the transfer information to your HUNT Cloud party when the external kista has been setup.

# SSH key pair

You will use a SSH public key to authenticate and access your kista instead of passwords. You must therefore send us such a key before we can deploy your kista. This section describes how to do this.

1. Generate a SSH key pair

We recommend that you create a dedicated SSH key pair for each kista transfer. Click on the section below for a step wise guide on how to generate a new key pair in Windows that you can use for your kista access.

How to generate a RSA SSH key pair on Windows with WinSCP

WinSCP (opens new window) is an open source data transfer client for Windows that we recommend for SFTP transfers. Download WinSCP from winscp.net (opens new window) and install the software. Follow these steps to generate a RSA SSH key pair:

  1. In WinSCP:
    • Click New Session
    • Click Tools
    • Click Run PuTTYgen

winscp_sshkey_1

  1. In PuTTY Key Generator:
    • Click Generate to generate a new RSA key pair.

winscp_sshkey_2

  1. In PuTTY Key Generator:
    • Enter ekista in Key comment
    • Enter a passphrase in Key passphrase
    • Enter the same passphrase in Confirm passphrase
    • Note. You will use this passphrase when you use the SSH key during the kista connection, so please make sure to remember it or store it in a suitable password manager.
    • Click Save private key

winscp_sshkey_3

  1. In Save private key as window:
    • Select a place to store the private key
    • Enter ekista as the filename
    • Click Save

winscp_sshkey_4

  1. In PuTTY Key Generator:
    • Click Save public key

winscp_sshkey_5

  1. In Save public key as window:
    • Select a place to store the public key
    • Enter ekista.pub as the filename
    • Click Save

winscp_sshkey_6

You should now have a SSH key pair consisting of the following files:

  • The private key ekista.ppk
  • The public key ekista.pub
How to generate a RSA SSH key pair on OS X, macOS and Ubuntu

1. Generate a new dedicated public/private RSA key pair.

cd ~/.ssh
ssh-keygen

You should see the following output:

Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/your_home/.ssh/id_rsa):

2. Name the key.

Name your key ekista and press enter.

Enter file in which to save the key (/your_home/.ssh/id_rsa): ekista

3. Add a passphrase for you key.

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):

We recommend that you add a passphrase on your key. You will use this passphrase when you use the SSH key during the kista connection, so please make sure to remember it or store it in a suitable password manager.

The key should not be generated with the expected output:

Your identification has been saved in ekista
Your public key has been saved in ekista.pub
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:<long textstring>

The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 3072]----+
|       ....      |
|       +.=       |
|      o O .      |
|     o + *       |
|    . OoS.=.     |
| o . =o=o*oo     |
|. B ..+.o.E o    |
| + = ..ooo =     |
|  o   oo o=      |
+----[SHA256]-----+
  1. Send us your public key.

See your new key files:

ls | grep eksita
Accepted key types

We accept the following public key types:

  • RSA
  • ECDSA
  • Ed25519

2. Share public SSH key with HUNT Cloud

After generating the SSH key pair, please share the public key (not the private one) with us. Send your new public key (ekista.pub) as an email attachment to your HUNT Cloud contact that can forward your key to us as an attachment in their service order.

# SFTP client

You will need a SFTP client to connect and transfer data to the external kista. For Windows, we recommend the WinSCP client. OS X, macOS and Ubuntu can use built in command line tools.

In addition to the SFTP software, you will need the external kista transfer information shipped by HUNT Cloud on the time of deployment to be able to connect.

Access information from HUNT Cloud

You will need the following information from HUNT Cloud to connect to your kista:

  • Host name
  • Port number
  • User name

Below is a guide on how to connect using the WinSCP SFTP client on Windows.

How to connect to an external kista on Windows with WinSCP
  1. In WinSCP:
    • Click New Session

ekista_7

  1. In the Login window:
    • Enter ekista.hdc.ntnu.no as Host name
    • Enter the port number from the transfer information as Port number (the number in the example will not work).
    • Enter the user name from the transfer information as User name (the name in the example will not work).
    • Click Advanced

ekista_7

  1. In the Advanced Site Settings window:
    • Select the Authentication page in the sidebar
    • Uncheck the Attempt 'keyboard-interactive' authentication checkbox
    • Enter the location of the Private key file. If you followed the previous guide, then this should be the location of the ekista.ppk private key file.
    • Click OK

ekista_8

  1. In the Login window:
    • Click Save

ekista_9

  1. In the Save session as site window:
    • Choose a Site name if required, combining the User name and Host name (the site name given in the example will not work).
    • Click OK

ekista_10

  1. In the Login window:
    • Click Login

ekista_11

  1. In the Warning window:
    • Compare and verify that the appropriate SHA-256 key fingerprint from the transfer information matches
    • Click Yes

ekista_12

  1. In the Authentication Banner window:
    • Read the information banner to ensure you are connecting to correct kista
    • Click Continue

ekista_13

  1. In the Key passphrase window:
    • Enter the passphrase for your private key. If you followed the previous guide, this should be the ekista.ppk key and passphrase that you set during the generation in the SSH key pair section above.
    • Click OK

ekista_13

  1. In WinSCP:
  • You should now be connect to the SFTP server
  • Upload data in the upload directory

ekista_13

How to connect to an external kista on OS X, macOS and Ubuntu

You can connect to the kista from your local computer using the built in SFTP tool.

# -- principal example
sftp -oPort=<port-number> <username>@ekista.hdc.ntnu.no

# -- practical example
sftp -oPort=2124 johndoe-importer@ekista.hdc.ntnu.no

Once logged in you can follow the examples from our internal kista guide for upload or download of data.

# For internal users

Follow the examples from our internal kista guide.

Last Updated: 4/18/2024

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