Skip to main content

Making a Reservation

1. Go to the VCL Home page.

2. If you are not already authenticated, you will be presented with a login screen. Select your affiliation and proceed to login.

3. Click the ‘Reservation’ link.

4. Click the New Reservation button.

5. Based on your level of access, you will be presented with a menu of VCL application environments to choose from.

6. Select the VCL application environment you would like to use.

7. Select the time you would like to start the reservation, for an immediate session select ‘Now‘.

8. Select the duration of your reservation, by default the initial duration is 1 hour. Once the reservation is active it can be extended to a total of 12 hours. Under special cases longer durations can be made available, contact research@unc.edu if you have this need.

9. Submit your request.

10. You will be taken to the Current Reservations page. Here you will see a pending signal while the assigned compute node is being prepared. Click on the ‘Pending…‘ link for details of the processing.

11. Once ready, a ‘Connect‘ button will appear. Depending on the environment, it can take anywhere from 1 to 20 minutes for the request to be ready.

12. If you are connecting to a Windows-based reservation from off-campus, you will need to connect to the campus network using the VPN client. More information on this can be found at Connecting Off Campus Requires a VPN Connection . You must be connected to the VPN before clicking the Connect button.

13. After clicking the Connect button, you we see the details of your requested environment. The details can include the remote IP address, a single one-time password (depending on the environment) and information on how to connect to the remote computer running the application environment you selected. Also note that the details regarding the connect infomation will change for each reservation you make. Connect to the remote machine.

You may receive a warning referencing an invalid certificate chain or that the identity of the machine cannot be verified. This is normal, due to the temporary nature of these machines. It is sa
fe to click to connect anyway.

Note
Be aware that some application environments will timeout and end your reservation if you logoff or disconnect from it for more than 15 minutes.

VCL Home Page