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- Some campus servers and resources require a VPN connection if you want to access them from off-campus.. Mapped network drives are the most common example. You do not need to use VPN to access Canvas, your Western email, OneDrive, or other Office 365 apps.
- If you are using a public Wi-Fi connection from somewhere like a hotel, cafe, foreign country, or airport, however, connecting to connecting to our VPN will add an additional layer of security, so you may want to connect to our VPN even if it is possible to access the services you need without it. Western’s VPN service is "full tunnel", which means all your internet traffic is encrypted and routed to Western's network while you are connected to our VPN. It is not encrypted once it leaves Western’s network.
Installation
- Some secure resources require VPN even when you are on campus, but only a small number of staff need VPN for this purpose.
Standard VPN Access
Students and most faculty and staff need only standard VPN access so they can map to campus network drives from off-campus:
- Request standard VPN access using our VPN Request Form
- Once the Help Desk says you have permission do the following steps from off campus. Install VPN from off-campus using this link: https://securevpn.wwu.edu.
- Click the AnyConnect tab on the left and you will see a link to download AnyConnect. If you already have the client installed, the link may simply say, "Connect."
- When prompted, enter your Universal username and password.
- After installation, the client will automatically start and connect to WWU. Later, you can access the client by going to:
- Windows: Start > Programs > Cisco
- Mac: Applications > Cisco
- When you click the Connect button, the client should connect automatically to the WWU VPN server. If the "Connect to" field is blank, enter the address of the VPN server: securevpn.wwu.edu
Full Tunnel or Split Tunnel?- Generally you want to select Full Tunnel so all of your network traffic is encrypted by the VPN.
- Split Tunnel allows you to communicate with other devices on your local network, like networked printers. This option encrypts only the traffic between you and WWU systems.
- If you are using software like Windows Remote Desktop to connect to your primary office computer from off-campus (or other remote computer like a laptop), you can use either split or full tunnel from your off-campus this secondary computer. If you remote into your on-campus primary office computer and need to use VPN on that computer (required for ODBC connections to databases behind our firewall) you must select Split Tunnel on your campus primary computer.
VPN access for Banner, Nolijweb and AiM
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