Access Requirements

A valid account - this can be an NCSU account, an account from one of our participating academic partners, or a generic VCL account (requires approval).

A computer with an internet connection. We recommend a broadband connection, some of the applications environment are graphic intensive and require faster connections. Dail-up modem has been tested and is being used but is not recommended for user satisfaction.

If connecting to a Windows VCL environment - a Remote Desktop Connection client is required.

Remote Desktop Connection Clients

• Windows - Remote Desktop Connection is included in Windows XP and Vista
• Mac OS X - Remote Desktop Connection can be downloaded from Mactopia:
  • http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop
• Linux/Unix - The client is called rdesktop. Most modern distro's include this package, if not the tool can be downloaded from a third party site:
  • http://www.rdesktop.org

If connecting to a Unix VCL environment such as Linux or Solaris - an ssh client plus an X windows system is required.

SSH (Secure Shell) client

• Windows - Putty lightweight ssh client available
  • http://www.putty.org
• Mac OS X - a native ssh client is available in the OS. Lauch the Terminal application.
• Linux/Unix - normally a native ssh client is available in the OS. Open a Terminal window.

X11 - X Window System

• Windows - There are couple of X11 windows systems
  • X-Win32 Starnet Communications NCSU holds a site license available to NCSU users
    • NCSU download (requires NCSU login)
  • Xming(Free) - Simple install and seems to work well with putty. Xming is a sourceforge project available from:
    • http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming
• Mac OS X - X11 will need to be installed. This is usually found on the OSX Install media
• Linux/Unix - X11 is a natively installed package.