Dear all,

Due to recent events, we are aware that more staff and students will be
needing to work remotely than is usually the case.  To enable everyone
who uses YNiC to work in as flexible a way as possible at this time, we
have temporarily added more resource to our remote desktop setup and
removed the restrictions which normally limit its use to those at PhD
level and above.

For those (including students) who have not used the remote desktop
setup before, you will need to take the following steps:


  1. Register for and set up access to the University VPN

     https://www.york.ac.uk/it-services/services/vpn

     (if you are a YNiC user who does not have a UoY account, please
email support@ynic.york.ac.uk and we will make alternate arrangements)

  2. Set up the X2Go remote desktop application.  We have a
comprehensive guide here:

     https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/docs/ITPages/RemoteDesktop

     Note that you will need to log in to the YNiC website in order to
read the documentation (see the link at the top right of the website).

  3. When you wish to connect to the remote desktop service, you will
need to connect to the University VPN and only then connect to the
remote desktop service.


We have set up a single page for users with information about remote
working at YNiC.  This page is at:

     https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/docs/RemoteWorking

We would ask that support issues are filed in the usual way, by emailing
support@ynic.york.ac.uk.  In addition, staff will be monitoring the
"Town Square" channel on the YNiC Discuss server at:

     https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/discuss

We will continue to monitor performance of the remote systems over the
next few days and will do our best to match the service capacity with
the demand from staff and students.