Remote access to University network facilities
Home broadband, and Internet connections in hotels, now make it much easier to access the University network and facilities remotely. IT Services cannot guarantee to support every form of remote working, but there are a number of things that have been tried and found to work.
It is important to remember that access to some facilities requires you to be effectively connected to the University network by Virtual Private Network (VPN), as described below. Please check here for current on-line information about broadband support.
If you connect to the Internet from outside the University or by using a commercial Internet Service Provider (whether by dial-up or broadband) then your access to the University facilities will be restricted and controlled, for obvious security reasons. If you connect to the University wirelessly from a participating institution via eduroam, similar restrictions will apply.
Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A VPN connection is equivalent to a direct connection to the University network. To set up a VPN, you need to download, install and configure the Cisco VPN client. You can download the installation file here, where you will also find full instructions. There are versions of the VPN client for Windows and MacOS.
When you need to access a service requiring a VPN connection you should run the Cisco client and connect using your username and password. The Cisco client has been found to work with most common broadband providers. There are compatibility issues with some firewall and anti-virus software.
Using an email client
To send email from your St Andrews email address using an email client (that is, other than the Outlook Web App (OWA), as below) you should use VPN access - see the section above on Virtual Private Network. You should configure the client to use our secure SMTP server (the method for Thunderbird is given on the Computer and IT Support web pages).
If you attempt to use the secure SMTP server without VPN access, then:
- use of secure SMTP may not be permitted by your ISP
- your attempts to connect (and so relay email) via our secure server may be rejected; blacklists of spam sources supplied to us (under contract from JANET) include IP address ranges that ISPs use for broadband and dial-up.
IMAP mail makes it easy to manage your mail in different locations. You can read your mail and send mail from any computer with an IMAP email client. If you set up a VPN (as above) you will also be able to send email through our main mail servers.
If you use dial-up a lot it is perhaps better to use POP mail instead of IMAP, because with IMAP you need to be constantly connected to the server. You should download a copy of your email to your computer and then end the connection before reading your messages, otherwise you will incur larger phone charges.
Using the Outlook Web App
If you are away from your own computer you can access your mail by OWA from any networked computer with a web browser. Just follow the link on the OWA login page:
Accessing the Central File Store (CFS)
Your University file space (for instance your 'home directory' on the CFS) can be accessed from elsewhere in the following ways, all of which require you to enter your username and password. You will need to be connected within the University network, via a VPN or via SARA dial-up, as described above:
- map a network drive (Windows) or connect to a server (MacOS), using the samba protocol (here 'nexus' is the address of your 'home directory' on the CFS, and xxx is your username):
Windows: \\nexus.st-andrews.ac.uk\xxx
MacOS: smb://nexus.st-andrews.ac.uk/xxx - use FTPES (Explicit FTPS or secure File Transfer Protocol over TLS/SSL) to log in to ftp.st-andrews.ac.uk by means of an FTP client that supports TLS/SSL (such as FileZilla or Fetch)
- use your email client in IMAP mode to access your University email
Other access to network services
Special steps are required if you want to access the following services from outside the University network, as follows:
- Library material: much of the licensed material can be accessed using a password. See the Library's web pages for more details. If you set up a VPN, you will be able to access most licensed Library material through the University's web cache without needing a password.
- Access to the University's web cache: this also requires VPN access - see above.
