The basic steps of using the Virtual Computing Lab.
First - You will need a valid account. This can be an NCSU account, an account from one of our academic partners, or a standalone VCL account.
Second - Depending on your personal computer operating system, you might need additional connection software such as Remote Desktop Connection or ssh(secure shell appilication). For details please see Additional access requirements.
Third - Start the reservation process:
- On the main page, Click the 'Make a Reservation' link.
- If you are not already authenicated, you will be presented with a login screen. Select your affiliation and proceed to login.
- Once authenicated you will be presented with a menu of VCL application environments to choose from.
- Select the VCL application environment you would like to use.
- Select the time you would like to start the reservation, for an immediate session select 'Now'.
- Select the duration of your reservation, by default the initial duration is 1 hour. Once the reservation is active it can be extended up to 6 hours total. Under special cases longer durations are available.
- Submit your request.
- You will be taken to the Current reservations page. Here you will see a pending signal while the assigned compute node is being prepared. Click on the 'Pending...' link for details of the processing.
- Once ready, a 'Connect' button will appear. Depending on the environment, it can take anywhere from 1 to 20 Minutes for the reserved system to be prepared for your use.
- After hitting the Connect button you we see the details of your requested environment. The details can include the remote IP address, a single one-time password(depending on the environment) and information on how to connect to the remote computer running the application environment you selected. Also note the details regarding the connect infomation will change for each reservation you make.
- Connect to the remote machine.
