PERFORM: Working Remotely



Resources & Links


Concordia VPN


Accessing Concordia Office/Lab Phones

  1. Access your voicemail from off-campus:
    • Dial 514-848-4220
    • Press *
    • Enter your ID (extension) followed by #
    • Enter your PIN (voice-mail password) followed by #
  2. Set up call forwarding from your office phone to a personal phone:
    • Log into Student Hub / Carrefour and select Accounts & Settings, then Phone Configuration. Follow the prompts until you reach the Cisco Unified Communications Self Care page. Then:
      • Log in using your netname and password.
      • Select "Call Forwarding"
      • To enable, check the box "Forward all calls to:"
      • Enter your forwarding phone number, adding 9 at the beginning (e.g. 95141234567).
      • To undo the forwarding, uncheck the box "Forward all calls to:".
  3. Software Phone (Cisco Jabber): Jabber a software phone option which lets you use an application on your PC (when connected to the VPN) as your work phone. This requires IITS to set it up for you first, which will require contacting the IITS Service Desk. More instructions are on the IITS website.

Accessing PERFORM Shared Folders (ie. Project Folders)

The PERFORM Centre's file server hosts folders for individual research projects at PERFORM (restricted in access to student's of the project PI) and for individual users who are conducting research at PERFORM. These shares are accessible over the SMB protocol (also commonly referred to as CIFS or Samba).


Connect to your Windows computer at PERFORM

  1. Remote Desktop Connection (RDP)

    If you want to use an on-campus machine as if you were sitting in front of it and have it work seamlessly, this is the right choice.

    Do not use this is if you want to join an existing session that another user is logged into (ie. a desktop support situation), or monitor an unattended analysis that you are preforming since this method will log out other users. For that it would be best to use a system like TeamViewer (see below).

    You will need to know the name of your computer (DEVICE NAME; e.g. PERFORM-F1BEBX). To begin:

    Note that your on-campus PC must be powered on and connected to the network. When you are done, DO NOT SHUT DOWN the computer you've remoted into. Log out ("sign off") the session instead.

    If the computer is your personal workstation (not a shared lab computer) you may simply disconnect your session by closing the RDP window (you will remain logged in with an inactive session).

    From your Windows PC at home:

    1. Connect to the Concordia VPN first
    2. Run "Remote Desktop Connection" - it is a built-in Windows tool: Use the Search Box in the task bar, or open the Start Menu => Start Typing "Remote Desktop Connection" which will give a shortcut to the program
    3. In the "Remote Desktop Connection" program, type the name of the PC (e.g. PERFORM-F1BEBX) you want to connect to (you might have to add ".concordia.ca" to the device name, i.e. PERFORM-F1BEBX.concordia.ca), and then select Connect
    4. Optionally, click "Show Options" to set other options, such as what resolution to run the remote desktop at, should you link local resources on your PC (clipboard, hard drives, printers) to the remote PC
    5. When prompted, provide your login credentials. Enter your Netname in the format "CONCORDIA\yournetname".

    On your Windows, Mac, Android, or iOS device at home:

    • Open the Microsoft Remote Desktop app (available for free from Microsoft Store, Google Play, and the iOS & Mac App Stores).
    • Add the name of the PC (e.g. PERFORM-F1BEB3) that you want to connect to (you might have to add ".concordia.ca", eg. PERFORM-F1BEB3.concordia.ca).
    • When prompted, provide your login credentials. Enter your Netname in the format "CONCORDIA\yournetname".
    • Select the remote PC name that you added, and then wait for the connection to complete.

    Reminder: DO NOT SHUT DOWN your machines after you are done using them remotely. We can't turn them back on without someone physically going to PERFORM, and during the COVID-19 lockdown that is often not possible or will require a delay of a few days.


  2. TeamViewer

    We chose TeamViewer here since it's a popular system that is easy to use. In order for this to work, you need to have Team Viewer already installed and running on your on-campus machine and the one you are using at home. Team Viewer does not come installed on PERFORM's machines, so unless you know it has already been installed, please contact PERFORM first to install it for you. You can download it on your home computer from the official site: https://www.teamviewer.com/

    1. After TeamViewer is installed on the machine at PERFORM and your own computer, connect to the Concordia VPN
    2. Open up the software and copy the ID and password from the remote (on-campus) machine, represented by (A) and (B) in the picture below.
    3. Then open up Team Viewer on your computer at home and enter in the ID from (A) into (C) and afterwards it will ask you for the password from (B).

  3. Reminder: DO NOT SHUT DOWN your machines after you are done using them remotely. We can't turn them back on without someone physically going to PERFORM, and during the COVID-19 lockdown that is often not possible or will require a delay of a few days.


Connect to a Linux computer at PERFORM

There are 2 options that are recommended here. We also advise against using TeamViewer since it sometimes has issues with the Linux graphics card driver.

  1. With a Terminal
    • Connect to the Concordia VPN
    • Open a terminal, replace the "yourNetname" and the "computerHostname" with your own information for the following command ssh -XY yourNetname@computerHostname

    It will be the most reliable way to interact with your machine. The "-XY" flag will allow you to open graphical programs like Matlab / FSL.

  2. X2GO
    • Connect to the Concordia VPN
    • Install the x2go client on your home computer: https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/download:start
    • X2GO should already be installed on the machine you are trying to connect to. If it's not please contact thomas.beaudry@concordia.ca for more details or to do it for you.
    • For the "host" you enter your machine name (you might have to add ".concordia.ca" to the device name, viz. PERFORM-F1BEB3.concordia.ca).
    • For the "login", use your Netname.
    • For the "session type", select LXDE.
    • That's all you need to set it up. Your session will show up on the right hand side of the application and you need to double click it and enter your netname password.


  3. Reminder: DO NOT SHUT DOWN your machines after you are done using them remotely. We can't turn them back on without someone physically going to PERFORM, and during the COVID-19 lockdown that is often not possible or will require a delay of a few days.


Connect to a Macintosh computer at PERFORM

There are 2 options here:

  1. Mac's Screen Sharing

    The Instructions to do so are quite lengthy, they are broken into 3 parts and described in details in the following links.

  2. Team Viewer
    • The instructions are the same as the Windows instructions above.

  3. Reminder: DO NOT SHUT DOWN your machines after you are done using them remotely. We can't turn them back on without someone physically going to PERFORM, and during the COVID-19 lockdown that is often not possible or will require a delay of a few days.


Please remember that PERFORM Research Members and their students also have access to the PERFORM's cluster if you require additional computational power. Feel free to contact thomas.beaudry@concordia.ca if you need more help!


Remote Support from PERFORM

If you require support accessing a resource (applications, data files, servers, VPN, etc), contact us by email or on Microsoft Teams.

If it becomes necessary for us to connect to your computer remotely with desktop sharing, we can do so using Teams or TeamViewer. Make arrangements by email first, then you can download and run TeamViewer QuickSupport which does not require you to install anything, and then share the "Your ID" number is creates with the person who is providing support in order to connect to your computer.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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