Remote access to University resources
These instructions apply to Cubbli and Ubuntu versions later than 22.04. If you have an older installation, you should upgrade.
All University of Helsinki (UH) computational resources, including file shares, printers, software and computational resources can be used remotely used with Cubbli (and Linux in general), most by multiple different methods. You should also see Helpdesk's instructions.
VDI remote desktops
Easiest way to access is through remote Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) remote desktops. VDI provides both remote Windows desktops and Linux desktops. The Windows desktops are remotely available only for the University staff because of Windows licensing restrictions. You can access VDI with VMWare Horizon client or from browser through link https://vdi.helsinki.fi/. If you have a University laptop installation (Windows, Linux, or MAC) you can access VDI from the Univerity Menu. You don't need a VPN to access remote desktop resources. Please see instructions.
If you have a personal University Windows desktop hosts in University's premises, you can ask Helpdesk to provide access to it with VDI.
UH-VPN (eduVPN).
eduVPN is the University of Helsinki's main VPN service, which allows users to access the university's resources (almost) regardless of their location/network connection.
eduVPN should come pre-installed on Cubbli 24.
Notice: the old uh-vpn openVPN based connections will be disabled in the near future.
How to start using eduVPN in short:
1. Open the eduVPN GUI.
2. After opening the eduVPN GUI, select University of Helsinki as the Institute.
3. eduVPN will then prompt you to authenticate yourself via the University of Helsinki's MFA.
4. After succesful authentication, you still have to "approve" the use of eduVPN. Click "Approve".
5. Then you can select the University of Helsinki. It will then prompt you to pick a profile. Allroute will probably serve 99% of use cases.
The VPN connection should now be established. You can switch between profiles from the "Select Profile" drop-down menu.
You can close the client's window, and the VPN connection should stay active.
Here's how to start using eduVPN with screenshots:
- Open the eduVPN GUI
2. After opening the **eduVPN GUI**, select **University of Helsinki** as the **Institute**.
3. eduVPN will then prompt you to authenticate yourself via the University of Helsinki's MFA.
4. After succesful authentication, you still have to "approve" the use of eduVPN. Click "Approve".
5. If all went well, the screen should look like this:
6. Then you can select the University of Helsinki. It will then prompt you to pick a profile. Allroute will probably serve 99% of use cases.
The VPN connection should now be established. You can switch between profiles from the "Select Profile" drop-down menu.
You can close the client's window, and the VPN connection should stay active.
SSH
The university provides access to multiple SSH servers for its users, allowing secure remote connections to various systems and resources. The available SSH hosts are:
- pangolin.it.helsinki.fi
- melkki.cs.helsinki.fi
- melkinkari.cs.helsinki.fi
- melkinpaasi.cs.helsinki.fi
- markka.it.helsinki.fi
- login.physics.helsinki.fi
- pultti.it.helsinki.fi (This is a larger physical machine with 256GB of RAM, an Intel Xeon E5-2620 processor with 6 cores and 12 threads)
These servers provide access to shared university file systems via SFTP and can also serve as SSH jump hosts, enabling secure connections to other internal university services not directly accessible from the open internet. Additionally, SSH sessions can be used to forward web traffic, allowing access to university resources in a web browser without routing everything through a firewall.
To access these servers, users must be part of the grp-cubbli-ssh-access group. If needed, users can contact the helpdesk to be added to this group.
SSH host fingerprints are available at: https://cubbli.cs.helsinki.fi/cubbli_ssh_known_hosts
Network file shares.
MS OneDrive and other cloud storage services can be accessed with rclone. Please see Using rclone to access MS OneDrive and cloud storage for details.