Connecting to Linux from MacOS

A tutorial on connecting MacOS to Linux via SSH

Photo by Sean Lim on Unsplash

The Scenario

Suppose you have an older laptop or desktop at home, and you’ve decided to give it a new lease of life by installing a light-weight Linux distribution. This will be your “server” of sorts. You can use it as a basic file server, to do a bit of web scraping, host a low traffic webpage … etc.

This quick tutorial teaches you to connect your main MacOS to your older laptop via SSH.

SSH is a secure remote login file protocol. You can find additional info here.

SSH Command

Step 1. Work out your ip address on your Linux machine

Fire up a terminal on your linux machine:

ifconfig -a

Your ip address should be visible as “inet xxx.xxx.x.xxx”

Step 2. Check your SSH port on your MacOS

Fire up a terminal on your Mac and find your SSH port. Usually this will be port 22.