### Configuring your MathLAN account for remote access
If you were not able to configure your Public/Private key pair before leaving campus you will need to contact the MathLAN system administrator, Mike Conner [connerms]. Grinnell College's firewall does not allow connections to MathLAN machines from off-campus. To enable off-campus connections, two gateways have been configured; they require public key *and* Duo authentication to connect. Until your public key is configured, you will not be able to connect.
### Using the private key
After contacting the MathLAN system administrator, you will receive a private key. Complete the following steps to use your private key to connect to MathLAN:
#### To connect via SSH on the command line:
1a) MAC Instructions
Save the private key to your Mac. This can be done any number of ways, but for simplicity, following these instructions will save your key in a way that will make it easier for you to use.
Begin by saving the key (named *id_rsa*) to your Desktop.
Open a Terminal window on your Mac.
Move the key from your desktop to the ```.ssh``` directory under your home directory and change it's permissions:
$ mv ~/Desktop/id_rsa ~/.ssh/id_rsa
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Quit and restart the Terminal application on your Mac so that the private key will be added to the ssh-agent. Alternatively, use this command to manually add the key to the ssh-agent:
$ ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
Test an SSH connection to ssh.cs.grinnell.edu (replacing *username* with your GC username):
$ ssh username@ssh.cs.grinnell.edu
1b) Windows PC Instructions (with PuTTY already installed)
Begin by saving the key (named *id_rsa*) to any location on your Windows PC.
Next, follow [these instructions (specifically the section titled Use Existing Public and Private Keys)](https://devops.ionos.com/tutorials/use-ssh-keys-with-putty-on-windows/#use-existing-public-and-private-keys) to import your private key to be used in PuTTY.
### To connect via FastX (for the desktop environment)
Begin by saving the key (named *id_rsa*) to any location on your computer.
See [these instructions](https://mathlan.sites.grinnell.edu/ssh/fastx/2019/08/12/Off-Campus-Connections/#connecting-with-fastx) on using your key to connect to https://ssh.cs.grinnell.edu.