The Group Server is the computer in our Fishtank. Every graduate student will have a user account on it and have access to some of the software we pay for, such as Origin, Comsol, Autodesk, Nextnano, to name a few.
Connect to the University Network
To login via Remote Desktop (RDP) on your own laptop/home computer, you need to be in the university network so that your computer can find our group server.
If you're at MRC/Main campus and connects to UT Wifi, you'll be automatically in the university network.
If you're at home, you have to first connect to UT VPN (see this link: Connecting to the University of Texas VPN).
Set Up RDP Client Settings
Next step, you can start setting up the RDP connection. You can choose your own preferred RDP client. If you don't know of any, don't worry, computers today should come with a basic one.
Windows
If you have a Windows computer, just hit the Windows key and type in "remote desktop", you should see the Remote Desktop Connection app as the first returned search result.
For those of you that are feeling spicy, here's how it works. Microsoft created a shortcut to the .exe file of the RDC client and put it in the start menu path. The original file of the .exe is usually in this location: C:\Windows\system32\mstsc.exe
After you open this app, click the "Show Options" button on the bottom left. The "Logon Settings" section is where we enter the information
In "Computer: ", enter: ece-894554.austin.utexas.edu
In "User name: ", enter "AUSTIN\your_eid" where you replace your_eid with your eid (see the example in the above screenshot).
In the screenshot above, the "User name: " box is grayed out because my previous credentials are already saved. If you want to use new ones, for example, if you want to log in using the admin account, you can click "edit" and then "Use a different account".
Hit "Connect"! If it is the first time you log in, you'll be prompt to enter a password, it should be the same as your UT EID password.
There might also be a notification about Digital Certificate, just accept and tell Windows to not bother next time.
Mac OS
I'll let someone else fill in this part
Additional Tips
There are a few tips that can make your RDP experience slightly better and speed up your workflow.
Windows RDC Client
The Windows default RDC client is already very robust in terms of functionalities, such as file copying, copy board sharing, etc. Some of the additional settings and tweaks worth considering are,
- Passing local drives to the RDP session
You can pass the storage drives and any drive you plug in later (such as a USB flash drive) to the RDP session. To turn this on, in the RDC main page go to "Local Resources", find the "Local devices and resources" section at the bottom, click "More" and tick "Drives", which will select all your existing drives and any drives you plug in later. You can also expand "Drives" and select what you want to pass through
The drives will show up on the main explorer page in your RDP session. For example, in the following screenshot, "C on LAPTOP-blah" is the C drive of my personal laptop that I passed through
This is mostly useful when you want to copy things from your flash drive into the Group Server. Although technically you don't need to do this since copy board sharing and file transfer is already available for the RDC client. - High DPI related settings
If your laptop has high resolution and >100% Windows Scaling, you might see weird scaling behaviors when logging into the Group Server remotely (in most cases, the phenomenon is that the text, taskbar, and icons look extremely small). This is because (I think) Windows Server version 2012 R2 does not know how to handle scaling properly, yet. If you RDP into a Windows 10 machine, I think the issue has been improved tremendously. But, you get what you get, and work with what you have.
A lot of smart people around the internet have already looked into this issue, and have some workarouds. For example, you can look here,
https://poweruser.blog/remote-desktop-client-on-hidpi-retina-displays-work-around-pixel-scaling-issues-1529f142ca93
I have been using this solution for quite a while (hence you see the "Remote Desktop HighDPI" shortcut I created myself, in the first screenshot of this page).
Mac OS: Microsoft Remote Desktop App
The default RDC app in mac OS kind of sucked, if I remembered correctly. There is a much better version that Microsoft put into the App Store, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id1295203466?mt=12
I also remember that it can pass through specific folders rather than the whole drive, which is better I think compared to the implementation in Windows RDC Client.
Waiting for a Mac user to properly write this section if they are in the mood.