macOS at the institute

Mac-specific notes for the institute’s IT infrastructure. SSH basics live on the SSH page, printer setup is covered on the Printing page – this page only covers what else is different on a Mac.

01 · Network

Eduroam & VPN

Both are provided centrally by CMS – guides linked there.

WLAN eduroam: CMS guide
VPN (off-campus): CMS guide

02 · X11-Forwarding

Graphical programs over SSH

For Matlab windows, GUI editors etc. on compute servers – needs XQuartz.

macOS does not ship with an X11 server. Install once: xquartz.org

Then connect with X11 forwarding:

$ ssh -X benutzername@ssh.mathematik.hu-berlin.de

Graphical programs (xterm, matlab, gedit) launched from that SSH session appear as windows on your Mac.

03 · Dateizugriff

Mount your home directory

Cyberduck for a GUI, sshfs for mounting.

Cyberduck

Cyberduck is free and well-integrated with macOS. Create a new connection:

Setting	Value
Protocol	SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol)
Server	`ssh.mathematik.hu-berlin.de`
Port	`22`
Username	your maths account

sshfs

With macFUSE + sshfs (via Homebrew) you can mount the home directory as a drive:

$ brew install sshfs
$ mkdir -p ~/uni_home
$ sshfs benutzername@ssh.mathematik.hu-berlin.de: ~/uni_home
$ umount ~/uni_home              # unmount

macFUSE needs a one-time approval under System Settings → Privacy & Security (kernel extension).

04 · Homebrew

Install Unix tools

The de-facto package manager for macOS.

Install via brew.sh. Then:

$ brew install wget rsync tmux git

Homebrew needs the Xcode Command Line Tools, offered automatically on first brew use – or manually:

$ xcode-select --install