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MobaXterm tabbed SSH client (etc) for Windows

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After posting my last blog post (Goodbye Dropbox, One Drive, iCloud and Hello Nextcloud private cloud on UpCloud) I received comments from readers as to why I used Putty/WinSCP and not MobaXterm.  To be honest I had no idea MobaXterm existed.

I did a quick Google and checked out the pros and cons of Putty/WinSCP v MobaXTerm.  

MobaXterm Highlights

  • MobaXterm is a lot faster at uploading and downloading files over SSH connections
  • MobaXterm can connect to practically anything (SSH, Telnet, RDP, RSH, Xdmcp, VNC, FTP, SFTP, Serial, Shell etc)
  • Multiple terminals can either be in tabs or split horizontally or vertically.
  • Edit remote files via SSH and SFTP – Pro feature
  • Supports macro controls (multi commands in single screen) – Pro feature
  • MobaXterm has many plugins
  • MobaXterm can be run from a portable USB drive

Nice

MobaXterm Website

I visited https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ website screenshot

I had an option to download the Free Version or to purchase a Professional Version.

Free v Pro version comparison

I will be reviewing the Pro version (you will see why later). I am reviewing Version 20.2 (Build 249). You can download the free version at https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/download.html.

If you purchase the Pro version (with 12  months of updates) for $69 USD. Delivery is done by email within 24 hours after payment is received.

Download Home or Pro Version

Installing MobaXterm

I downloaded the 1.5MB Installer (the link was emailed to me after purchase)

installer exe

I opened the MobaXterm installer and entered my Pro serial number (emailed to me) then I clicked Next

Enter serial number

Customise Options (during the install)

I clicked Customise MobaXTerm Professional settings button

Advanced options button

The customizer options are impressive (Import and export settings, enable/disable features, generate a portable package etc)

Customizer options

I had an option to customise the banner or any server I connect to but I left the banner as the default banner.

Banner editing

I reviewed all options for the application. This is more in depth than Putty for sure.

Enable or disable just about everything.

I reviewed my default SSH settings.  SSH Keep alive will be turned on for sure.

SSH Settings Screen

I had an option to add plugins to MobXTerm

Dialog to save files to another folder.

I had the option to generate a portable of full installer 

generate Installer

Now I can resume the setup of MobaXterm, I clicked Next

Installer Click Next

I accepted the licence agreement and clicked Next

Licence Agreement

I installed MobaXterm to my C:\ Drive

Installer Choose destination folder.

I clicked Install

Installer Install

MobaXterm was now installed

Installer: Installed Screenshot

MobaXterm

I opened MobaXterm

Apologies in advance I setup Dark Mode in MobaXterm as soon as I opened the Configuration. All screenshots will be shown below in Dark Mode.

There are 12 colour themes to choose from.

I set the Dark theme.

Main Interface

The MobaXterm interface is more feature packed than Putty.

Menu Bar, Toolbar, Tabs and options are available

Windows prompted me to allowed access to MobaXTerm in my Windows firewall.

Time to create a connection to a server.

Adding a SSH Connection to a Server

I created a new SSH server connection to one of my existing servers.

  • I specified the IP address, username and protocol.
  • I set “SCP (enhanced speed)“
add server with options

I specified the path to my private key (for the server)

I specified my servers private key

I reviewed other terminal settings.

Other settings dialog

I changed the font to Courier New, Size 12 (I am sad). I also increased the initial size of the terminal (width and height)

Set terminal font and size

I reviewed network settings (all good)

network settings

I added a shortcut to the server onto my desktop

Save shortcut to the desktop

When I opened the connection to the server I was prompted to enter the Passphrase I set on my Public Key (nice).

Then I was prompted to put in my 2FA One Time Password (OTP) in the main terminal windows and a second time in a popup form (for the connection that builds the folder structure on the left).  This is how I configured my website. To get the OTP I need to insert my YubiKey and one the YubiCo Authenticator app and enter my keys password.

Some people say that having a passphrase on a public/private key and 2FA Authentication is a bit overkill but that is not everything I do.

enter passphrase

I need to enter two OTP’s to connect to my site.

If you are fast you can use the same OTP in both windows (but they expire in 30 seconds)

enter OTP

Nice I was able to connect to my Server just like Putty.  The cool thing is I can see files and folders without opening WinSCP.

folder list and a terminal side by side

This is way more convenient than using two programs. 

I enabled the Remote Monitoring status bar in MobaXterm. Now I can see system resources on my server without running CLI commands.

Upload Speed to Singapore from Australia

I uploaded a 1GB file with to the same server from WinSCP and MobaXterm to simulate a restore.

winscp v mobaxterm at uploading

I was gobsmacked, WinSCP could only upload a file at 342KB/s, MobaXterm could upload at 4.42MB/s.

I was uploading a 1GB file from my house to a server in Singapore (within 5 minutes of each other). I did set “SCP (enhanced speed)” when Installing MobaXterm.

MobaXTerm is 12x faster than WinSCP at uploading for me. This is well worth upgrading to a Professional licence.

Download Speed (from USA/East Coast) to Australia

I ran a practical download test (this time from Chicago). In the right-hand side of MobaXterm I zipped up my entire website folder (1.66GB)

zip -r /temp/www-22-Jun-2020.zip /www-folder

Then in the left-hand side of MobaXterm I downloaded the file, this is as simple as right-click then download.

Right click download.

I was presented with a directory tree specify where to save the file to.

Specify download location

I noticed the file was downloading at 16Mbps then 18Mbps then 22Mbps within seconds.

The download speed settled down to 26Mbps after a few minutes.

This is amazing for a download from the other side of the world (200ms ping and on a VPN, 19 traceroute server hops away).

download speed

I downloaded the same file from the same server with WinSCP to compare and MobaXTerm was 10x faster at downloading. WinSCP could only manage 2.57/MB/s

winscp download speed

Plugins

I will look into plugins soon: https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/plugins.html

Local Terminal

I can also start a local terminal (documentation here)

open terminal

I can run Linux commands on my Windows machine via Cygwin

“ls -al” on Windows anyone

ls -al screenshot

I noticed MobaXterm had found my WSL 2 Installation of Debian on my Windows 10 v2020.

I can now use MobaXterm to open my WSL Linux installations.

update wls linux

MobaXterm can easily connect to my local and online Linux servers with ease.

overview of the mobaxterm ui

Multiple Exec

I used the Multiple Exec (similar to the multiple cursors in Sublime Text Editor) to control 2 serves at once and run identical commands.

Multiple Exec sending keystrokes to multiple servers.

Import Putty Sessions

I did not notice until later but you can import existing Putty connections.

MobaXterm can import Putty sessions

Generate Public/Private Keys

Also, you can generate SSH Public and Private Keys from the Tools menu or the left-hand side (tab).

generate ssh key

Pros

  • File/Folder and Terminal window side by site
  • 13x faster file uploads over SSH
  • 10x faster downloads over SSH
  • Integration with WSL Linux Images
  • Import Putty Settings
  • Local Terminals/Cygwin

Cons

  • It would be nice to only have to enter my 2FA OTP once when connecting to one of my serves.
  • The user interface is full-on, I am still learning it

Conclusion

Honestly having faster uploads and downloads over SSH is a dream come true. I live in Australia and we have terrible latency and I have better things to do than to watch slow uploads/downloads.

I look forward to investigating MobaXterm plugins in the near future as I feel I I have just scratched the surface.

Links

MobaXterm Documentation: https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/documentation.html

 

v.1.1 Plugin info fix

Useful OSX Terminal Commands

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Following on my from Useful Linux Terminal Commands here is my Useful OSX Terminal Commands. This guide is handy for setting up a development OSX installation (e.g Apache, PHP, MySQL etc). I will update this post when I find new commands.

First, read my Useful Linux Terminal Commands post.

Normally I set up Ubuntu servers in the cloud on Vultr (read my guide here) or Ubuntu Servers on Digital Ocean (read my guide here) but this is how I can quickly set up a development environment locally on OSX.

Useful OSX Commands

Prevent your Mac from falling asleep

Prevent your Mac from falling asleep (for 1 minute)

Check Path

$PATH
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/Commands

Compare files

Show hidden files in Finder

Find file on OSX

Find all listening ports

Find process listening on port 80

Find a Process

Find A File (e.g httpd.conf)

Note: OSX Apache Index file location is…

To edit the default HTML file

Built-In Apache

Disable built-in OSX apache daemon

Restart built-in Apache daemon

View other startup daemons

View All Startup Daemons

Force network drives to automatically connect after each login (instead of manually connecting)

More: https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/automatically-connect-network-drive/

Set PHP as default Web Server delivered file in local Apache

Set…

Install PHP 7.0 on to OSX

FYI: 7.1 and 7.2 are out but I find 7.0 is more stable with WordPress (read more here).

More: https://php-osx.liip.ch/

Create a diag file in your OSX Default Apache root

Edit your default index file

Contents

Now load the file

Debug Info

Install MySQL on OSX

Download: https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

Download MySQL

Help: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/osx-installation-pkg.html

Uninstall MySQL OSX
Read: https://community.jaspersoft.com/wiki/uninstall-mysql-mac-os-x

Add MySQL to PATH

Reboot and Check the MySQL Service

Service Status

Check MySQL Version

Login to MySQL from the Command Line

Set a new root password (after logging in as root)

fyi: You can obtain a good password here.

Bonus: Install MySQL (PHP) management tool  (in Apache)

Download: https://www.adminer.org/#download Save the file to /Library/WebServer/Documents/adminer.php

Load Adminer in your browser and log in with your root password

Login to Adminer (via Apache/PHP)

Adminer

Creating MySQL Tables in Adminer (via Apache/PHP)

Create Table

Adminer allows you to fully manage your MySQL (create databases, users, run queries, alter objects etc)

Adding Records to MySQL with Adminer

Adding Records

Remove MySQL:

Read more here: https://community.jaspersoft.com/wiki/uninstall-mysql-mac-os-x

Get your Mac Processor Name

Show All OSX System Settings

Command:

Show Live File System Usage

Show last 10 lines of the system log

Get Your Local WAN IP Address

Get your Public IPV4 Address

More to come.

Hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.2 Find file (current version)

v1.1 Removed system info chunk (too big to format)

Useful Linux Terminal Commands

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Below are Ubuntu Linux commands I use often to setup, debug maintain servers.

Read this guide for Useful OSX Commands (for setting up Apache, PHP, MySQL, Adminer etc on OSX)

I recently moved my domain from a C-Panel hosted domain (and Email to Google G Suite (my guide here)) to a self-managed Digital Ocean domain (my LetsEncrypt Guide here, my Digital Ocean guide here, my AWS setup guide here, my Vultr setup guide here) and needed to transfer my WordPress site. Setup your own Digital Ocean Ubuntu server form $5  a month (get the first 2 months free by clicking here) or setup your own Vultr Ubuntu server for as low as $2.5/month by clicking here.

How to Reboot (from time to time when prompted with *** system restart required ***” messages appear).

How to set up a  bash file (*.sh) as Executable.

The file will now be executable.

Viewing your crontab (Windows Task Scheduler equiv)

Ping a port

Rename a folder

Set the owner of a folder

Check the rsync port

Run a file every 1 minute

Show server name

How to verify patch status for Meltdown and Spectre

Read my guide here to install the patch here.

Verify Spectre and Meltdown patch status

or

Restart network

More here.

Show Operating System Name

hostnamectl ! grep "Operating System"
 Operating System: Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS

Show installed Packages

Show all packages with “PHP” in the name.

Send Messages Other Logged In Users (CLI)

Show all user logged in

Sent a message to usr1

Sent a message to the root console

Messages will appear at the bottom of the user’s console.

Processor

List processes in a tree view (… = removed)

View major processes by usage/memory

Read more on ps here.

How big is a folder

Change FIle Create/Modify time’s

Change File Creation Date

Change file modify/accessed time

Tree

Tree needs to be installed first

Show an ASCII representation of a folder structure

Show files in a  structure

Show directories

List all files and folders in a structure

Backup a  www folder

Common (Digital Ocean) Debugging commands

Networking

Display all TCP connections

Display all UDP connections

List all Listening Connections

Show all Network stats

Show all UDP Network stats

Show all TCP Network stats

Show network packets

Displaying raw info

Show open ports

Upload a file to a remote server over ssh

Zip files

Install zip

Zip a  whole directory (with high compression)

Zip a  whole directory (excluding *.tmp, *temp, *.bak and *.zip file types)

Zip Help

Backup NGINX

Unzip

Installing Unzip

Unzip a  file

unzip filename.zip

Updates

Setup Unattended Ubuntu Security updates

At login, you should receive

Show Configured NGINX server names

Services

Reload daemon services

Verify the MongoDB service file exists

View the status of services

Local Dump

Show All Defined Ports

Show defined rsync ports

Show listening ports (active connections)

Show service status

View your bash history for a past command (e.g “openssl”).

grep "openssl" ~/.bash_history
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -keyout fearby.key -out fearby.csr

View last 1 line of a file.

Ping a server

How to check system uptime (and load average)

Uptime in friendly format

The load averages at the end are the last 1, 5 min and 15 minutes.

The w command is handy for showing uptime information as-well as logged in users (The ‘w -i’  parameter -i is handy for seeing what IP people are logged in from).

How to download a file

How to edit NGINX configuration

sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

and

How to find a file

also

locate php.ini

Find contents in files (recursive)

Find files by name and run a command on each

Show differences in files

Show contents of file (e.g urls.txt)

cat urls.txt
http://www.server1.com
http://www.server2.com
http://www.server3.com
http://www.server4.com
http://www.server5.com

Download all files mentioned in a text file.

View all packages with updates

Output:

or (on ubuntu 16.04)

Updates

Always backup your server’s configuration before updating.

Backup MySQL

Crontab

Add this to crontab -e to backup at 1 am every day

/scripts/shrinkmysql.sh  script to shrink SQL files

I had to add this to crontab

Cron job to shrink SQL dumps at 2am every day

Write to a single log file from the crontab at 2 am every day.

todo

Query a package (e.g. siege package)

How to set up a free SSL certificate (see my guide here).

How to set your timezone.

How to restart PHP

How to show the time on the server

sudo hwclock --show

Reload and restart the NGINX configuration and web server.

JSON viewing program

Installing

Using

or

output from json tool

Below are utilities I use a lot.

ncdu file size utility

Installing

Using

pydf disk checking utility

Installing

Using

output from pydf tool

ntp timezone service

Installing

Using

Displaying startup processes

Installing

Using

htop process manager.

Installing

Using

output from htop tool

Network Benchmarking (between two servers)

I use iperf to measure total bandwidth between two servers. You will need to allow port 5001 (TCP IPV4 and TCP IPV6 in and out) in any local firewalls and hosts GUIs.

Allow port 5001 on an ufw firewall (IN and OUT)

Deny IP

Allow port 22 access to known IP

Deny Outgoing Port

Allow out on port to known IP

More securing Ubuntu in the cloud here.

Install iperf on the target and source Ubuntu server.

Run this on the listening server.

Run this on benchmarking server (and add the IP of the listening server).

iperf -c 123.123.123.123

Results

Screen dump of ipref -c ip
iperf benchmarking output

Testing concurrent connections to a web server with siege.

Install siege

Benchmarking a HTTP server

./siege -t1m c10 'https://fearby.com'

#10 Concurent users

Benchmarking HTTPS sites

Install siege 4.0.2 ( steps here ).

Verify siege 4.0.2 is installed by running

Now can benchmark https sites

View incoming connections on the target server

I always increase my history size and tell it not to store duplicates.

Viewing your typed terminal history

Increasing your history size

How to Update Ubuntu

or

Edit SSH authorized keys

Search file and show lines where text matches

View packages with updates

View Boot Text

Automatic Monitoring (ever 1 second)

Active network connections

Network Packets

Free memory

Memory breakdown

or

Monitor NGINX memory

more soon…

Read this guide for Useful OSX Commands (for setting up Apache, PHP, MySQL, Adminer etc on OSX)

50 most useful Linux commands (view here).

View other Linux command informing sites here, here and here.

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v1.8 Show users and senda messages to other users

v.71 Show Operating System Name

v1.7 added Meltdown and Spectre patch information

v1.6 Removed -x fom zip directory

V1.5 Restart Network

v1.4 added Useful OSX Commands

Connecting to an AWS EC2 Ubuntu instance with Cloud 9 IDE as user ubuntu and root

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Recently I setup an Amazon EC2 Ubuntu Server instance and wanted to connect it to the awesome Cloud 9 IDE. I was sick of interacting with a server through terminal windows.

Use this link and get $19 free credit with Cloud 9: https://c9.io/c/DLtakOtNcba

c9io15-004

Cloud 9 IDE (sample screenshot)

C9 IDE

Previously I was using Digital Ocean (my Digital Ocean setup guide here) and this was simple, you get a VM and you have a root account and you do what you want.  Amazon AWS however, have extra layers of security that prevent logging in as root via SSH and that can be a pain with Cloud 9 as your workspace tree is restricted to the ~/ (home) folder.

Below are the steps you need to connect to an AWS instance with user “ubuntu” and “root” with Cloud 9.

Connecting to an AWS instance with Cloud 9 as user “ubuntu”

1. Purchase and set-up your AWS instance (my guide here).

2. You need to be able to login to your AWS server from a terminal prompt (from OSX).  This may include opening port 22 the AWS Security Group panel. Info on SSH logins here.

3. On your AWS server (from step 2) Install NodeJS.

You will know node is installed if you get a version returned when typing the following bash command.

node -v

tip: If node is not installed you can run the Cloud 9 pre-requisites script (that includes node).

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/c9/install/master/install.sh | bash

4. Ensure you have created SSH key on Cloud 9 (guide here).

5. Copy your Cloud 9 SSH key to the clipboard.

6. On your AWS server (in step 2) edit the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file and paste in the Cloud 9 SSH key (after you AWS key pair that was added from the setup of AWS) to a new line and save the file.

7. Log in to Cloud 9 and click create Workspace then Remote SSH Workspace.

  • Name your workspace (all lowercase and no spaces).
  • Username: ubuntu
  • Hostname: Add your AWS ec2 server hostname.
  • Initial Path: This has to be ~/

c9io15-000

8. Click Create Workspace

c9io15-002

9. If all goes well you will have a prompt to install the prerequisites.

c9io15-001

If this fails check out the Cloud 9 guide here.

Troubleshooting: I had errors like “Project directory does not exist or is not writable and “Unable to change File System Path in SSH Workspace” because I was trying to set the workspace path as “/” (this is not possible on AWS with the “ubuntu” account.

10. Now you should have a web-based IDE that allows you to browse your server, create and edit files, run termials instances that will reconnect if your net connection or browser tab drops out (you can even go to a different machine and continue with your session).

c9io15-003

Connecting to an AWS instance with Cloud 9 as user “root

Connecting to your server as the “ubuntu” server is fine if you just need to work in your “ubuntu” home folder.  As soon as you want to start changing other settings outside of your home folder you are stuck.  Granting “ubuntu” higher privileges server wide is a bad idea so here is how you can enable “root” login via SSH access.

WARNING: Logging in as ROOT IS BAD, you should only allow Root Login for short periods and it is advisable to remove root login abilities as soon as you do not need them or in production.

Having root access while developing or building a new server saves me bucket loads of time so lets allow it.

1. Follow step 1 to 5 in the steps above (setup AWS, ssh access via terminal, install node, create cloud 9 ssh key, copy the cloud 9 ssh key to the clipboard).

2. SSH to your AWS server and edit the following file:

Save.

3. Backup your root authorised keys file

4. Edit the root authorized_keys file and paste in your Cloud 9 SSH Key.

c9io15-005

5. Now you can create a Cloud 9 Connection to your server with root

  • Name your workspace (all lowercase and no spaces).
  • Username: root
  • Hostname: Add your AWS ec2 server hostname.
  • Initial Path: This has to be /

c9io15-007

tip:  If you have not added you SSH key correctly you will receive this error when connecting.

c9io15-006

6. You should now be able to connect to AWS ec2 instances with Cloud 9 as root and configure/do anything you want without switching to shell windows.

c9io15-009

Security

As a precaution, do check your website often in https://www.shodan.io and see if it has open software or is known to hackers.
Enjoy

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V1.6 security