Connecting to Remote Computers

It is possible to remotely to connect to many types of computer and utilize either a text based console session or a full graphical desktop. This can be achieved from many different types of clients

Connecting to a Windows computer

Connecting from a Windows Client

Microsoft has a utility called “Microsoft Terminal Services Client”. This is a little application that enables a user to connect to a desktop session on another computer. This application is available on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and 2008. It can also be installed on any other version of Windows by obtaining the installer from the Microsoft Download site by searching for mstsc.

To run the application it can be found in the Start Menu under Accessories or by typing “mstsc” in “run” on the Start Menu if it is available.

Using either method you get:

Clicking the “Options Button” provides you with a series of tabs where you can tailor your connection. The “Experience” tab is particularly useful as you can specify a setting depending upon the speed of your network connection:

This means of connecting can be done from off campus and it does not require the VPN to be enabled. However you would need to know and use the full DNS name of the computer you are connection to as in this image:

When you click the “Connect” button you will, in most cases have to provide a user name and password to a dialog:

You will have to provide NAU\ or NAU-STUDENTS\ in the username field depending upon which domain you have a user account on.

This method of connecting is very useful for connecting to your office machine from home and to one or more “Terminal Servers” that are available on campus. Once the remote computer authenticates the user and full desktop session is provided to the local machine.

A “Terminal Server” is a computer that allows multiple users to connect to at the same time. It can provide anything from the basic “Office Suite” to complex applications that may be available for students or staff to use. There are several of these servers on campus.

ITS provides a server with basic applications that is available for staff and faculty. Users can connect to: termsrv.ucc.nau.edu

Academic Computing provides a similar server for students to use but this server provides more applications for class work: virtuallab.nau.edu.

Here in the College of Engineering, Forestry and Natural Sciences we have a cluster of terminal servers that provide users with many applications. Staff, faculty and students can connect to windows.cefns.nau.edu from anywhere in the world and work on many of the applications that are available in classrooms.

Engineering Applications:

AISC, Altera Quartus, AutoDesk AutoCAD, Google Sketchup, Heavy Bid, HEC-RAS,HRS Quickscore, Interactive Thermodynamics, Minitab, MultiSim, National Instruments LabView, Orcad PSpice, On Screen Takeoff, Primavera, Prolog Manager, Promal, Retain Pro, SCRView, Turbo CAD, Visual Help, Westpoint Bridge Designer WPLM.

General Applications:

Adobe Reader, Microsoft Office, Thunderbird, Oracle Client, Oracle Calendar and PSPad text editor.

GIS Applications:

Arc GIS

Graphics Applications:

IrfanView and Paint.Net

Internet Applications:

Adobe Contribute

Math Applications:

A variety of Calculators, JMP, Mathcad, Mathmatica, Matlab, R for Windows and SPSS

Programming Applications:

Active Komod, Active Perl, Active TLC, Alice, BlueJ, Dev-C++, Easy68K, JBuilder, NetBeans, NetBeans BlueJ, PLT Scheme, Python, TortoiseSVN and Windows Powershell

Connecting to Windows Shared Drives

In the College of Engineering, Forestry and Natural Sciences there are various resources that exist on Windows file servers. These can be accessed from both on and off campus locations. To connect to these FROM ON CAMPUS or FROM MODEM CONNECTIONS it is a simply a matter of typing the path to the server in either the “run” utility on the Start Menu ( +R key combination) or into the address bar in “My Computer”.

For example for all users in engineering kashyyyk is the file server; entering \\kashyyyk connects to the server and provides access to its shared resources:

As you can see from the above image it provides access to the home (I), shared (S) and www (W) folders if they exist for a particular user.

For access to these resources from off campus via a DSL or Cable or Internet connection the only extra step is to create a VPN connection to NAU. Details can be found at: https://www4.nau.edu/its/mensa/services/vpn/Configuration/ConfigIndex.asp for creating a connection or obtaining client software.

College of Engineering and Natural Science file servers

Chemistry – \\alchemy

Engineering – \\kashyyyk

Geology – \\geosrv1 and \\geosrv2

Mathematics and Statistics – \\mathsrv1

Connecting from Mac OSX

To connect to a Windows computer from Mac OSX you need the Microsoft Terminal Service Client for Mac OS. This can be downloaded from the Microsoft Mac site: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx#Others

This provides exactly the same type of connection dialog available on Windows PC’s but from OSX.

Connecting from Linux or UNIX

Most modern versions of Linux or UNIX have an RDP client that can be used in exactly the same way to connect to a Windows machine.

Connecting to Linux or UNIX from a client

There are various methods of connecting to a Linux or UNIX machine. Most involve connecting via the Secure Shell Host or SSH. Standard SSH connections can be made from any client to any server that runs an SSH server daemon. These servers are usually Linux or UNIX machines although Mac OSX and Windows can be set up to do this as well. To do this from a Windows Machine you need an SSH Client like SSH Workstation or Putty. These can be found on the web or downloaded from NAU software downloads site. Linux and UNIX client natively have this capability.

The servers that are available for this type of connection in CEFNS are: unix.cefns.nau.edu provides a login shell and sftp.cefns.nau.edu provides a connection for secure file transfers.
These connections by default typically provide a text only based console/terminal session. However it is possible to provide a full graphical connection as well.
Please see the specific notes on our web site to do this – Creating an XWindows Connection Session (this page will be available shortly).