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.
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).
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 (which is often times the easiest one to use).
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.
I'll let someone else fill in this part