In order to connect, you must have an SSH client. If you are familiar with Telnet, SSH is quite familiar, except that it is encrypted, making it more secure for use over the Internet. This way, unauthorized people aren't able to snoop in on your connections.
The most popular SSH client for Windows is PuTTY. If you're using UNIX or Mac OS X, you can use the command-line (Terminal on OS X) ssh(1) command. Just type (where username is your tentacle.net username):
ssh username@tentacle.net
If you are on the road and don't want to download an SSH client, there is a Java applet available that will let you connect via SSH using your web browser. This applet is available at https://tentacle.net/ssh/
PuTTY is very small; less than 350k. You can even fit it on a floppy disk and bring it with you.
You can download PuTTY for free at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgatham/putty/download.html. It does not need to be installed; just put it where you want and double-click to run it.
When you first launch PuTTY, you should be at the main PuTTY Configuration screen. You will need to make a few entries:
Where you see Host Name, you need to enter the name of the server you wish to connect to, in this case tentacle.net.
Since you will be using SSH, make sure both SSH and Port 22 are selected. Choosing SSH should automatically make the port number change to 22.
Choose a name for this session, such as tentacle.net, then click to save the session. Now you won't need to enter this information again.
Click when the above is completed. This will connect you.
If this is the first time you are connecting using this program to this particular server, then you will receive a warning about how SSH has found a new key, etc. This is normal, it's part of the encryption process. Select . What this does is save the server key on your computer. If it changes, it will warn you since that can be an indication of a certain kind of attack.