Accessing the Production Server

Introduction

The production server is located at http://expertiza.ncsu.edu. It is firewalled at NC State University and thus requires VPN or tunneled connection. This article explains both methods.

VPN

The instructions to connect to NC State's VPN are located at http://vpn.ncsu.edu

Tunneling Via SSH

If you have access through NC State, you can first ssh into a publicly accessible server such as remote.eos.ncsu.edu using your unity ID before then connecting via SSH to expertiza.ncsu.edu.

After Connecting Through the Firewall

The command to connect to the Expertiza server is:

ssh <unity_id>@expertiza.ncsu.edu

Obtaining Private/Public Key Access

Setting up a private/public key pair will allow access to the Expertiza server with the rails user to run such commands shown below:

cap load_production_data
cap deploy
cap deploy:restart

Creating a Key Pair

To create your private/public key pair, run the following command:

ssh-keygen -trsa -C "your_email@example.com"

Retrieving Your Public Key

Copy and paste the output of the following command in an email to expertiza-support@ncsu.edu asking for private/public key access to the production server:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Authenticate as the Rails User

To test whether your private/public key has been set up correctly, you can try and connect using the passphrase entered when you created your key with the following command:

ssh rails@expertiza.ncsu.edu

Note: Be sure to have passed through the NC State firewall using a method mentioned above.