VPN
One option of accessing all the computing resources of our group is to establish a VPN connection to one of the servers. We are using the standard OpenVPN SSL VPN connections. The connection behaves very similar to a regular https connection that your web browser might make.
Getting started
Request a key
The connection uses a combination of a symmetric cipher and public key cryptography. That is why we need to generate a pair of keys for you. You can request a key by sending an e-mail to your local sysadmin (il-action@cs or akrevl@cs).
Copy the key
Once you get a reply from your sysadmin you can copy the key via SSH from the whale.stanford.edu server.
Windows users
You will need a program that can transfer files via the SSH protocol. Here is one suggestion: http://winscp.net/eng/download.php
Once you have the program up and running use your CSID credentials to connect to the whale.stanford.edu server. You will find your keys in the /tmp/openvpn directory. Download the your_CSID_win.zip file.
Linux and Mac users
scp your_CSID@whale.stanford.edu:/tmp/openvpn/your_CSID*.zip ./
Configure your OS
CentOS 6 OpenVpnCentOs6
Mac OS X OpenVpnMacOsX
Ubuntu 12.04 OpenVpnUbuntu1204
Windows 7 OpenVpnWin7