WPI's Virtual Private Network (VPN)

WPI has an extranet server available to provide a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to members of the WPI community.

What is a VPN?

A VPN is a secure connection through an on campus Extranet server that allows encrypted access to the same resources as if you were on campus.

For example, let's say that you have a laptop computer that you are using somewhere off campus. At this distant location you realize that the presentation you have to give is on your Unix drive on \\toaster.wpi.edu\username. You can't map that directory to a drive on your computer if you are off campus, so you have to resort to other methods to retrieve a copy of your presentation.

With the VPN, you could run the client software and map your drives just like you were on campus. All traffic between your laptop and the Extranet server and WPI Network is encrypted and secure, so you don't have to worry about sensitive information being intercepted en route. Traffic between your laptop and the Internet at large continues to be routed through normal means, and is NOT encrypted by the VPN.

See Network Drive Mapping Off Campus for more information.

Who should use the VPN?

The VPN is available for anyone working off campus that needs services that are only available on campus, such as: mapping network drives, accessing license servers for courseware, etc. The VPN does NOT provide access to off-campus services (such as e-journals that the library subscribes to) with a WPI IP address. If you need to use off-campus web services with a WPI IP address, you must still use the WPI Proxy Server. For additional security when using the proxy server, we strongly reccomend you use the VPN as well, since this will encrypt your login and password when logging in to the proxy server.

What about using the VPN while on campus?

The VPN is only intended for use from off campus. Using it while on campus will give absolutely no benefits at all, and may cause problems with certain applications

I already have the old VPN client installed. Will it still work?

No. The old Contivity VPN client will not work with the new server. You must uninstall the Contivity client and begin using the new VPN client.

How do I get the client?

The VPN now includes support for Windows 2k/XP, recent distributions of Linux, and Mac OS X.

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: Jul 26, 2008, 14:51 EDT