Secure Remote Development and File Management: SSH Keys and VSCode

Term: Summer 2025

Date: July 14th, 2025

Time: 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Location: Online Only

Instructor: Ayat Mohammed

Presented By: Advanced Research Computing (ARC)

Description:

This practical workshop introduces participants to secure and efficient remote development workflows on ARC systems using SSH key authentication and Visual Studio Code (VSCode). You'll begin by learning the fundamentals of SSH keys, what they are, why they’re important, and how to generate and configure them for passwordless, secure access to ARC clusters. A step-by-step walkthrough will guide you through key setup, with hands-on support available to troubleshoot common issues.
The session then transitions to using VSCode as a powerful, lightweight development environment tailored for HPC workflows. You’ll learn how to configure VSCode to connect to ARC systems via SSH, edit code remotely, navigate directories, and leverage extensions for error detection, version control, and productivity enhancement.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be equipped with a seamless, secure, and scalable remote development setup to support research and code development on ARC systems.

Prerequisites:

You will need an ARC account to follow along and set up these tools.
Access to a VT network (e.g., on campus or connected to VPN)