Overview of ENCS Computing Facilities

Academic Information Technology Services (AITS) oversees a multi-platform, multi-user environment. Our structure is comprised of multiple Operating Systems, hundreds of applications, thousands of machines (servers and clients) and numerous peripherals.

Disambiguation: All ENCS Users also have a CONCORDIA NETNAME. For services regarding your NETNAME, please refer to the following webpage: http://www.concordia.ca/it/services/netname-account-management.html.

ENCS Account

Obtaining an ENCS computer account

Your ENCS computer account is your net ID within ENCS. It is required when you login to the managed systems in our Computer Labs, read your ENCS emails, ask for IT support, only to name a few examples. You are encouraged to use your ENCS account to communicate within the ENCS community. To obtain this account, you must be associated to the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science as a student, staff, faculty member or authorized personnel. If you meet any of these requirements, you should present yourself in either of the following locations: Room H0964-00 on 9th floor of the Hall Building or EV007.182, on 7th floor of the EV Building, along with your valid Concordia ID card. We will present you with 2 copies of an agreement, one of which you will need to sign (You will agree to comply with the rules and policies of the ENCS Faculty), in order to obtain your username and account password.

IMPORTANT: You should change your initial password. Understand that you are responsible for the security of your ENCS computer account. Account sharing is strictly prohibited. You can visit our Service Desk if you forget your password. Please bring along your valid Concordia ID card to obtain this service. Due to security reasons, password information will not be provided by phone or email.

Privileges of your account

Your account grants you access to certain computer labs in the Hall and EV Buildings. Your access level is dependent on your Concordia status (i.e., the program in which you are enrolled, the course in which you've registered, the research activities in which you are involved). The easiest way to determine which Computer Labs you have access to, is to get the list of lab door codes.

You may refer to the Quick Reference Guide and/or Faculty and Staff Quick Reference Guide for a general overview of ENCS account basics and our services.

Access ENCS Systems

ENCS Labs and Desktops

There are approximately 70 computer labs in Hall building for the teaching support, and 32 labs in EV building for the research support. Refer to the ENCS computer labs index for more information.

All the PC systems in the labs are dual boot(Windows and Linux) systems. You have the choice between Windows or Linux via a menu when the computer boots up. Based on the access privilege to the resource in a PC, we make three types of the image(usually referred to as cut). They are lab cut(analyst-managed, including research cut and grad cut), office cut(analyst-managed), and user-managed cut. Please refer to ENCS desktop for more information.

Software available in Windows

Software available in Windows on the Laboratory Desktop.

Remote accessing ENCS system

The analyst-managed machines can only be logged in locally in the lab. We disable the means of remote access, such as remote desktop, VNC, etc, for analyst-managed machines. However, you can access ENCS Linux hosts from any machine where there is an Internet connection.

ENCS Networking

We apply considerably restricted rules to secure ENCS network. One rule worth to know is that each network jack can only be connected to the machine that is being hooked on. Plugging another machine to a jack without informing the ENCS analysts will make none of the machines ever connected to that jack losing network connection.

To hook your own computer to ENCS network, please send us the network connection request.

Concordia Wireless Networking

Concordia University does provide a wireless network to all its members accessible mostly from any place on its campuses as long as you have a wireless interface on your PC and have a My Concordia Portal user account.

The wireless network is under the authority of the Instructional and Information Technology Services (IITS).

ENCS AITS does not have authority to act upon that network, nor does have any tool to know the status in whole or in part of the wireless network.

For all ENCS users, if you previously used the wireless network but at this time cannot establish a connection, we recommend you to do the following verifications first before asking for help.

Verify if your Portal user account is still active (please use a wired connection to do such). Your account should be active in order to establish a wireless connection.

If your account is active and you are still unable to establish a wireless connection, then consult the IITS helpline:

• Phone: 514-848-2424 ext 7613
• Email: help@concordia.ca

,or visit them in person in H925(SGW) or CC206 (Loyola)

ENCS Course Support

AITS supports ENCS supported courses with computer labs and required softwares. In addition, the instructor of ENCS supported course can request

• A course account which can be used to build the course web page
• Electronic Assignment Submission(EAS)

The course account (also referred to as group account) and Electronic Assignment Submission(EAS) are not available by default. The EAS course registration is done on this page(For course instructor only).

The information about VLSI, real-time, 490 Projects, etc, can be found on Additional Resources.