VPN access

The VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to set up an authenticated and encrypted session with the University network.

The main uses are to allow students and staff to access internal resources from their home systems and to allow students and staff to bring laptop computers into the building that can access our network and the Internet after authentication.

For those not from the computer science department reading this: not all departments allow their users access to VPN, and for as far as I know we are the only department giving students access.

The VPN can be reached from the Internet outside the University (your Internet connection at home, traineeship) provided any firewall allows traffic over port 500/udp in both directions.

The VPN is also reachable using wireless networking SSID WLAN-UU.

Using the VPN

Client software is needed to access the VPN. The client software comes from Cisco (as the VPN concentrator is a Cisco device). This software is available only for users from the university.

To log in to the VPN server, you will need a profile (see below) and your Solis-ID and password.

You have received a letter with your Solis-ID and password from the university.

Students need to have computer science as primary studies. You can't use it if your primary studies is somewhere else in the university, and you only do one or more subjects with computer science.

A lot of fresh student accounts seem to have VPN access disabled by default. When other Solis applications work for you but VPN does not get in touch with the servicedesk to get this fixed.

Specific operating systems

• Installation and use of the UU VPN under Windows
  VPN client for Windows download
• Installation and use of the UU VPN under Linux
  VPN client for Linux download
• Installation and use of the UU VPN under MacOSX
  VPN client for MacOSX download

Other clients for these operating systems

Yes, we know other client software exists for these operating systems. We do not support other client software.

Most other client software will have a serious problem with the encrypted group password in the profile.

Other operating systems

Cisco maintains an overview of supported operating systems (look for ipsec vpn). There is (at this time) no client for PalmOS or Windows Mobile available. Available software found sofar fails when dealing with the encrypted group password.

What can you do

When you are connected, you can use the following resources:

• Your homedirectory, see specific descriptions per operating system
• The smtp server for outgoing mail
• The newsserver news.cs.uu.nl
• Internal web pages on http://www.cs.uu.nl/
• Other internal webservers (such as tarantula for the students)
• Access the library resources that are only available from the University network. Check the library website or start at the references of the library page (Dutch).

Notes and remarks

Almost all problems connecting seem to be related to firewalls on your end. A firewall/NAT device is fine, as long as it can deal with traffic over ports 500 udp both incoming and outgoing. Certain brands of 'home broadband router' have a serious problem.

The client will divert all your Internet traffic through the VPN server. This will give problems with other Internet traffic. Disconnect the VPN when you aren't using it.

Keep your antivirus software activated and up to date.

Use of the VPN falls under the same rules as the rules for connecting machines to the University network and using a computer science account. When your machine causes trouble your entire Solis account can become disabled.

Related pages

Accounts and passwords
Filesystems
Remote access to our systems
Staff account migration ; mail-client configuration and moving mail
Staff account migration to soliscom accounts
Students account migration to soliscom accounts
VPN access from Linux
VPN access from MacOSX
VPN access from Windows
Webspace
Wireless network access

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