Virtual private network (VPN)
A number of services such as some library information sources are reserved for emplyees and students of the TU/e and therefore restricted to the TU/e network, the IP-adresses starting with 131.155.
You can still access those services from outside the TU/e network if you set up a VPN (Virtual Private Networking) connection which is restricted to owners of TUE-accounts.
If you want to setup a VPN connection, you can ask us to help or apply the instructions for the simplest setup for Windows XP or Windows Vista or Windows 7.
Your TUE network drives
The last part of the VPN guide above talks about accessing your G:\ and S:\ drives. Instead of typing in the commands, you can download this file (right click on it and choose to save it somewhere accessible). Execute it after you have set up the VPN connection. You need to run this every time you have reconnected the VPN.
In case you prefer to do this by hand (for example, because the G: or S: drives are in use on your local machine), it is also possible to do this using Windows Explorer:
- Start Windows Explorer and choose Tools, Map Network Drive...
- Choose a drive letter (for example G:) and then enter \\winfiler\username into the text box below, substituting your TUE username.
- Click Finish. You will now have a G:\ drive for this session.
- In order to map your S:\ drive, repeat the steps above but enter \\winfiler\common in the textbox.
Alternate setup
The setup described above works in 99% of the cases. There is no need to read on if everything you want to do is working. However, there are some technical pecularities that might prevent this setup from working, or being the best choice.
The following are features of this setup, along with reasons why you might want to consider another one:
- You can use either VPN or your usual internet connection but not both. You can use both at once with "split tunneling", but you will have to setup your own routing tables, which is hard and generally not very useful.
- You can only check data encryption but not use it because it is disabled on the VPN-server. But do note that lots of network services are already encrypted, and that your password is always encrypted before it is used.
- You have setup a Point-To-Point-Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) connection, which might be firewalled from your location.
If these features do not cater for your needs, refer to the more elaborate VPN-pages in Dutch or English.