Connecting From Home
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Overview
It is not presently possible to run Waterloo Polaris applications remotely. However, Waterloo Polaris users have remote access to their accounts for file retrieval.
All Waterloo Polaris services which are provided by Unix or
NT servers, including email, news, Web, file sharing and printer access,
are all available remotely.
If you connect to the Internet using a modem and phone line, you will likely be using Point to Point
Protocol (PPP) which temporarily connects your PC as a host on the
Internet. Once a PPP connection has been established, you can run any network
client applications that you want on your home PC. The IST-CHIP
has a CD available for $15 that contains some useful software for home
computers, including Acrobat Reader, Eudora Lite, McAfee
Anti-Virus Software, Netscape Communicator, NewsXpress,
Quicktime Viewer, Synchronize, WinZip, and WS_ftp.
You can also obtain freeware or shareware versions of most client applications
via FTP at pcdepot.uwaterloo.ca (the campus software archive),
or elsewhere on the Internet.
Obtaining a UW Dial-in Account
To access UW computing services from home via UW's modem pool, you must have yet another account,
a dial-in account. To obtain a dial-in account, you must go to the IST-CHIP
in MC-1052. You must also establish a cash balance to defray the connection-time
charges. You will be provided with information sheets describing the home
set-up and connection procedures.
You may also gain access to your UW accounts via the Internet through a third party Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs can often provide a faster network connection than provided by UW's modem pool. However, if you choose to use an ISP, your home PC's Internet address (IP address) will not have the same "domain" as computers on the UW campus, and this may affect your access to certain types of informaition (such as campus news groups, campus Web sites, etc.).
Accessing Email
Configure your local (i.e. your home PC) mail client program to access
your Unix mail server at UW. In order to configure your mail client you
need several pieces of information (POP account, SMTP server name, your
password on your mail server). See the section on Using Email from Off Campus for details.
Accessing News
To access news from home configure Netscape or the news reader of your
choice to access news.uwaterloo.ca as the NNTP server. This will only work if you are using the UW dial-in server. You can ask your ISP to provide the uw.* newsgroups.
Web Browsing and Publishing
To browse the Web from home just configure the Web Browser application
of your choice.
Linking to and publishing to your Unix Web server at UW is
easiest if you use an FTP application to put
HTML documents on your Web server. Just remember to log in directly to
the Web server and set the correct file permissions (this step is not necessary
for accounts stored on Network Appliance servers, since file permissions are inherited from the directory you store them in).
Connecting to UW Unix or NT Accounts
If you are using Windows95 or NT at home, you can map a UW NT account and
may be able to map your Unix account as Windows drive letters. In order to do so you must have the Network Control Panel configured.
To mount a network drive, right-click
the My Computer icon and select Map Network Drive. Store the files you
want to access from home on your Unix or NT disk space. If you can't map
your Unix or NT account as a drive letter, please see the Waterloo Polaris Frequently Asked Questions list. You can always use an FTP program to move files between your home PC and your UW Unix account.
Accessing Your Waterloo Polaris N Drive
If your account is housed on a Network Appliance, you cannot FTP or Telnet directly to it. Access to your Waterloo Polaris files is available, however, if you have a Unix account which mounts the Network Appliance as a file system. Then, you can FTP or Telnet to your Unix account and immediately have access to your Waterloo Polaris files. Exactly which Unix account supplies this type of access depends on your faculty. For example, in Engineering access to the Waterloo Polaris files is available through Engmail.
If your Unix account is configured to serve files to Win95/NT
(via a Samba server) you will be able to mount your Unix account as a drive
letter on your Waterloo Polaris workstation and your remote workstation.
You can then just treat your Unix account like an extra hard disk.
If you are using Windows98 or NT at home, it may be difficult to mount your Unix account as a drive letter, since it forces the use encrypted passwords
which are incompatible with some configurations of Samba servers on campus.
It is possible to disable encrypted passwords by editing your registry
file (a procedure not recommended for average users).
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