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This section is designed to cover the wider University systems (i.e. not just the ones in the Merchant Venturers Building).
Eduroam
Eduroam is the university’s wireless internet service. Eduroam should work across all UK universities and allows easy and fast connection to the Internet from most devices.
IT services have an extremely good guide on how to set up Eduroam on nearly all devices here.
VPN
The University has a Virtual Private Network which allows you to access resources as if you were connected to the main University network. This can come in useful when doing research as it allows you to log into many academic websites you cannot access using your own internet connection.
For detailed instructions on how to connect to the VPN check the University’s guide.
Beware that your router must support VPN passthrough.
The new Email system (xxxxxx@my.bristol.ac.uk) is based upon Gmail and is much easier to set up than the legacy email system (xxxxxx@bristol.ac.uk) .
To access your email from a mail client you will need to make sure IMAP is enabled. (Log into webmail -; Settings -; Forwarding and POP/IMAP -; IMAP access -; Enable IMAP)
If your Mail Client doesn’t auto configure the settings for you, here they are:
(replace xxxxxx with your university username)
Email address: xxxxxx@my.bristol.ac.uk
Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
- User Name: xxxxxx@my.bristol.ac.uk
- Password: (Your University Password)
- Use SSL: Yes
- Port: 993
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.gmail.com
- Authentication: Password
- User Name: xxxxxx@my.bristol.ac.uk
- Password: (Your University Password)
- Use SSL (or STARTTLS): Yes
- Port: 465 or 587
Remote Desktop
Remote Desktop allows students to connect to the same systems available in the Library and many windows based Computers around the University from their own laptop. It is similar to logging on graphically to snowy however it is a more generic university system. There is an excellent guide here
Student Filestore
You will have to be connected to the University network to access the student filestore. (Either via Eduroam Resnet or VPN). The student filestore utilises samba to work under Windows, Mac and Linux. Instructions on how to connect can be found here.
Printers
As always, printers are as difficult to use as ever at the University. After 2 years at Bristol I have yet to find a way to print from my own laptop (a mac). If anybody knows how, please share in the comments section. The printer in the main Linux Lab is called mvb211b, I use this to print out all university related documents. It is a black and white printer so you’ll have to scout around for a colour one. I do believe there is a colour printer in the downstairs Windows labs. If for whatever reason you find that suddenly you cannot print (even if it worked before) check your print credits. The university systems have a printer balance, however this is not shown on the Linux lab machines. I have been left scratching my head a few times trying to diagnose the blasted printer, just because I had run out of print credit without realising. You can check your credit by logging into the My Bristol portal
Personal Webspace
I would seriously recommend making the most of this. The Computer Science department gives you free webspace during your time at the University. I have found that due to Google’s search algorithm, results coming from this university webspace have a high ranking and as such are vital for anybody trying to market themselves online. To access your own personal webspace type in the address http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~xxxxxx (where xxxxxx is your university username). For example my webspace is http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~tm0797/. As long as you are sensible you can use this space to build a basic website for yourself.
To build your website, first ssh into snowy:
ssh xxxxxx@snowy.cs.bris.ac.uk
Then change directory to your webspace:
cd /home/web/ugrads/xxxxxx
You can now build your own personal website in this folder.