#Coronavirus: Current Information for Home Office/Mobile Work

Content

• ˅ Mobile Communication and Reachability
  • ˅ Availability by Phone
  • ˅ Telephone Conferences
  • ˅ Video and Web Conferences
  • ˅ E-mail Access
• ˅ Recommended Use of VPN
• ˅ Access to URZ administered Workstations
  • ˅ Access to URZ to URZ administered Work Environment (Windows)
  • ˅ Remote Access to URZ administerred Linux Workstations
• ˅ Collaborative Work on Documents
• ˅ Access to AFS Project Directories

Mobile Communication and Reachability

Availability by Telephone

In order to be available for business during home office, we recommend to set up call forwarding to your private landline or mobile phone. This can be configured in the IdM Portal (the management portal for your account) under the menu item “Telephone”. Please note that if a call is forwarded to an external telephone, the “leading exchange zero” is also important.

Forwarding and further settings for telephones can be configured in the IdM Portal: Direct link for telephone settings

For special requirements on telephone communication there are further technical possibilities which have to be discussed and conceived in each individual case. In case of special requirements please write an e-mail to support@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de.

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Telephone Conferences

Telephone conferences can be conveniently conducted by using the service DFNconf. At the same time, this service offers screen sharing. The conferences can be created under https://www.conf.dfn.de.

In the current situation, this service offered by the German Research Network (Deutsches Forschungsnetz, DFN) is very busy. The DFN makes every effort to adapt the available resources to the requirements.

To avoid overloading the service, we recommend to use telephone conferences only when absolutely necessary.

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Video and Web Conferences

For video and web conferences using the DFNconf service, please have a look at the section „Telephone Conferences“.  Additionally, the service WebEx by Cisco is offered for video conferences. This should be available without any restrictions. If you want to use Cisco WebEx, please use the currently free offer (for 90 days).

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E-mail Access

• For mailboxes on the central mailbox server:
  Webmail in browser – https://mail.tu-chemnitz.de
• For mailboxes in Exchange: Outlook Web App in browser – https://msx.tu-chemnitz.de

VPN is not necessary.

If your mailbox has reached the given storage capacity, please order an extension via the IdM Portal: E-mail settings → Set quota.
If you already reached the maximum storage capacity, please write an e-mail to support@hrz.tu-chemnitz.de.

Recommended Use of VPN

For mobile work outside the office we generally recommend to use a secure connection (VPN). When using a VPN connection, a secure tunnel into the TUC infrastructure will be built. All official communication is handled by the infrastructure of the Chemnitz University of Technology. This allows TU-internal services to be used without restrictions

Information on how to configure this VPN can be found on the service’s description page.

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Access to URZ-administered Workstations

For the application case “mobile work” we recommend remote access for users of URZ-administered workstations.
The execution of application programs and the processing of data takes place on the administered workstation. File systems and intranet services are accessed as usual. The mobile device is only used for input (keyboard, mouse) and output (screen). If you have a URZ administered workstation and want to use it remotely, the following sections are relevant for you depending on the operating system of this workstation.

Please make sure that the workstation computer at the university is not shut down or switched off.

Access to URZ administered Environments (Windows)

The access to the personal workstation within the URZ Windows Administration Service W10SELFADM (“target system”) is possible via remote desktop.
For this purpose, the program “Remote Desktop Connection” can be used under Windows at home and the program “xfreerdp” under Linux, for example.

Conditions:

• Access only from campus network, i. e. VPN is necessary
• SelfAdmins can already connect to the “target system” (workstation computer) via remote desktop by default.
• For other users access to the “target system” (workstation computer) has to be enabled by the SelfAdmin:
  Control Panel → Administration → Computer Management → “System – Local Users and Groups – Groups” → “Remote Desktop Users” → Add: TUC\username
• Only one remote desktop connection per “target system” (workstation computer) is possible at one time.
• A verification of the target system’s certificate is not possible.
• Access to computers in administration networks is not possible.

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Remote Access to URZ administered Linux Workstations

Your workstations in the Linux Administration Service (LADM) can be used remotely using the software X2Go. You get a complete Linux session over the network. The first requirement for using X2Go is a VPN connection from your mobile device to the campus network. The client software is available for download in the X2Go project for common operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac). Please, enter your administered workstation as “host” and choose “MATE” as session.

The client software X2Go can be downloaded from: https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php

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Collaborative Work on Documents

For collaborative work on data and documents the TUCcloud service can be used. It is not necessary to install any special software or to copy any data to your private network – TUCcloud can be used directly in the web browser. It is also possible to edit documents directly in the browser and this by several people simultaneously.

The service can be accessed via https://tuc.cloud. It is not necessary to use VPN.

You will find a detailed description of this offer on our TUCcloud service page.

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Access to the AFS Project Directory

Access to AFS project directories and AFS home directories is possible in several ways. Therefore, if one way fails, the alternative ways should be used.

1. AFS-client software is the access possibility to be preferred. The prerequisite for this is access to the campus network via VPN client.
   You’ll find installation notes on the description page.
2. Access via the central login server using SCP, WinSCP: For this, access to the login server must be activated in the IdM portal: IdM-Portal → User Menu → Security Center→ Public Server Services (or by direct link), see also AFS web page: Information on alternative access
3. WebFileManager: is available from the internet

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