The VPN client comes in two forms, a browser-based applet and a standalone application. If you use VPN quite a bit (say for traveling, or from off-campus consistently), we suggest the standlone application. In either case, run the application/applet and provide your current TCNJ username/password to initiate the connection. For best results, we suggest that you do this prior to starting your web browser or email client. Once the VPN client is connected (on Windows machines) you should see a small lock icon in the taskbar at the bottom right of your screen. If there are two green dots above the lock, you have established your VPN to the campus. Now, you can use your web browser as normal. If you attempt to access any sites that required you to "be on campus" to view the site (such as the department's student research document archive or the department's ftp server, you will be permitted access, as the computer you are using has a campus IP address (and is thus a part of the campus network).
Additionally, if you prefer to use a native email client (such as Eudora or Thunderbird) to read and send your email, the VPN client will permit you to natively connect to the IMAP/POP server to read the email. And, since you are part of the campus network, you can send your email through the campus servers, rather than relaying it through your ISP (such as Comcast, etc.). For those of us with laptops that tend to travel off-campus quite a bit, the ability to VPN back to campus (from any ISP) and send and receive emails without changing the email settings in the mail client is a very handy thing!
| SSH Connection Animation |
|---|
| View a Shockwave animation of an example of establishing an SSH connection to beast.tcnj.edu. |
The SSH Communications Security company has a very nice freely available SSH client for windows machines. (Generally speaking, SSH clients are a standard program in most Linux distributions.) Once installed, you can establish a connection (known as ssh'ing) to any machine that will accept such a connection. Each of the Sun workstation machines in Holman 117 and 370 are configured to permit such a connection. Thus, if you wish to remotely log into any of the Sun workstations in the deparment's Sun labs, you can use the SSH client to do so.
One of the nice things about the SSH client mentioned above, is that it has a nice interface for both command line shell-based access, as well as a GUI FTP client. Using this portion of the software, you can easily move files from your local machine (in your dorm) to the Sun machines (and back).
One final thing to note is that for you to be able to SSH to any of the Sun workstations the department provides, your computer must have a campus IP address. If your computer resides on campus, this is not a problem. However, if you are connecting from off-campus, you will first need to establish a VPN session (see above), and then establish your SSH connection.
As a reference, the following Sun workstations are available for your use. SSH'ing to each has not been tested, but we believe the capability is provided for each.
| Holman 117 | Holman 370 |
|---|---|
| apu bart cleetus drnick duff flanders gabbo hibbert homer itchy krusty milhouse moe mrburns poochie scratchy selma sideshowmel simpons slh smithers snake |
callisto calypso charon deimos enceladas europa ganymede hyperion io lapetus larissa mimas nereid oberon pandora phobos phoebe prometheus proteus rhea telesto tethys titan titania triton umbriel |