How to access remote desktop?

1. Remotely accessible computers

2. Access

3. Data storage

4. How to connect

5. Disconnecting

6. Status pages

Several computers are accessible to students participating to interdisciplinary projects. Some of them are only remotely accessible, and provide CAD & simulation software. Some other provide graphics and video editing software, and can also be accessed locally (which is useful for video editing).

Each computer can be used at most by two concurrent users, but check current CPU & RAM usage before connecting, as a big simulation or video project might easily use all the resources of the PC.

Please make sure that you completely read and understand this page before trying to access these resources.

Short link to this page: https://make.epfl.ch/remote-pc

Before you can access the computers, you must complete the short online training session at https://make.epfl.ch/training. After this, the coordinator of your MAKE project will have to validate your registration, and once this is done, you will be able to connect to the computers.

Each PC has a c:\data directory that is accessible by all users. However, please note that:

• No backups whatsoever are made, and no hardware redundancy is present; therefore in case of hardware failure, data will be lost. You are responsible of saving any important data elsewhere (e.g. to your networked My documents folder).
• In case of disk space shortage, data will be erased without warning, starting with the oldest files.
• User profiles (local application settings, files on the dekstop, etc.) will be purged at least once per semester, or more often if necessary.

• From Windows, use the integrated Remote Desktop Connection client. You can specify various settings before the connection (e.g., whether you want a full-screen connection or not).
• From MacOS, install Microsoft Remote Desktop application, which is the Mac equivalent of the corresponding Windows software.
• From Linux, you can use Remmina (often preinstalled, on Ubuntu sudo apt install remmina will install it if needed), which is a multi-protocol remote connection software. To connect to Windows machines, you need to use the RDP protocol. In most cases, you need to specify 32-bit as color depth for the connection to work.

In all cases, you need an active EPFL VPN session to be able to successfully connect if you are not on the campus network.

Please note that disconnecting from a remote session does not log you out: programs continue to run and use memory, and the computer is displayed in the list as disconnected with your username. This is perfectly fine if it is the intended use (e.g., for a short break, or to let simulations run overnight), however in all other cases you must use the Sign out function in the start menu to actually log out.

Idle sessions will automatically disconnected after two hours. Disconnected sessions will be terminated after 24 hours; in that case, any unsaved data will be lost.

Remotely accessible computers for CAD & simulation (new PCs)

Remotely & locally accesible computers for graphics & video