Working From Home

This page describes how you can connect to your office computer from off campus.

The explained process is for computers with Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7

Setting up the office computer to accept connections - this must be done first

Also for this whole process to work your office computer must always be on and not go into sleep or hibernate mode

1)    While you are in your office log on to your desktop computer.

2)    Find the name of your computer > Either right-click the "My Computer" icon on the desktop or "My Computer" in the Start Menu choose Properties. In the dialog that opens click the Computer Name tab. You need to know the full computer name. It will look something like BIO234-01.bio.nau.edu. Write down this name as you will need to know it later.

3)    Next, open "Computer Management" again, Either right-click the "My Computer" icon on the desktop or "My Computer" in the Start Menu but this time choose Manage.
This opens the Computer Management utility:

In the left hand pane expand Local Users and Groups and then click on Groups. In the right hand pane double click on Administrators.
    a) If your user ID is listed in the dialog your computer is already setup ready for you to connect.
    b) If your user ID is not in this group please contact our help desk 3-8084 or cefnsithelp@nau.edu asking for your user ID to be added to the Remote Desktop Users group on your desktop computer - PROVIDE THE COMPUTER NAME you recorded in step 2.
We will contact you when this is done.

Making a connection from your home or off-campus computer

1)    Log on to your home or off campus computer; again this assumes XP, Vista or Windows 7

2)    You need to run a little application called Remote Desktop Connection; 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 anywhere in the world and it DOES NOT require the VPN to be enabled. At this point you enter the complete computer name you recorded in step 2 into the text box named Computer:

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.

Connecting from Mac OSX

To connect to your Windows office 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.mspx - Click on the Remote Desktop link in the Products section.
One you have installed this application you connect in much the same way as the instructions for Windows.

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).