EECS provides certain types of Desktops for Teaching and Research purposes. All Student desktops are Managed. Most of the PhD desktops and all of the Staff Desktops are also Managed. A number of PhD students can be provided with Self-Managed Desktops for their research.

Managed Desktops

“Managed Desktops” means that the desktops are pre-installed with Windows and Linux, directly connected to EECS Services (Network. Fileserver, Printers, etc), daily updated with the latest security patches, on the trusted Managed network and the software deployment is managed by the EECS Systems team.

Users do not have administrator rights, and for software/packages installation they must raise a relevant Request.

Student and staff desktops are fully managed, on the student network, with a great variety of software. Users can login using only their EECS username and password.

We also provide MacOS X (mainly for MAT students and some academics).

Dual-boot

EECS Managed desktops are dual-boot systems running the latest versions of CentOS and Windows OS.

Managed Desktops boot from the network over PXE. During that stage, the desktop requests an IP address from a DHCP server. Then a blue PXE screen lets you choose which Operating System (Windows/Linux)you would like to boot from.

The following video shows the initial PXE-boot sequence in EECS:

Home Folder

During login, the users will find their home folder mounted on their Managed Desktop. In Windows it’s the H: drive and in Linux it’s the /homes/EECS_USERNAME.The home folder is exported from a central Fileserver, which means that the home directory will be available in every EECS Managed Desktop and server the users login into

All data saved in the Home Folder are also included in the EECS Backups.

 

Domains

Currently there are two domains in EECS, isolating Teaching and Research resources.

• STUDENT (student.eecs.qmul.ac.uk) : This is the Student domain, all Student desktops and servers in this domain are isolated and secured from the rest of the networks and the outside world.
• RESEARCH (eecs.qmul.ac.uk / research.eecs.qmul.ac.uk): This is the Staff/PhD/Research domain. All Staff/PhD Desktops  and servers are isolated and protected from the rest of the networks and the outside world. All devices inside this domain are considered as ‘trusted’ since they are fully managed.

Any device that needs access resources inside these domains, they must use the ‘login-servers’ or each network.

 

Operating Systems

Windows

Windows 10.1 is installed in all EECS Managed desktops for Students and Staff/PhD members. Users can login using only their EECS accounts.

The managed Windows systems use cross-platform software as far as possible so that you can access your email, files etc as conveniently under Linux and MacOS as you can under Windows.

When you log into Windows for the first time, it will take a few minutes to build the Windows user’s profile, this is normal.

 

Linux

The latest version of CentOS is also installed in all EECS Managed Desktops, updated daily. The default desktop environment is GNOME, but KDE and Xfce can be provided after a Request.

A large variety of applications, IDEs, editors, libraries etc is installed, with additional software resources available from the /import/linux software share as well as in the form of environment modules.

Requests for additional software can be raised via Helpdesk Ticket

 

MacOS X

A number of MacOS X desktops are also available for the MAT students.

 

Self-Managed Desktops

Desktops provided by the School for PhD students can be self-managed. That means that they are not pre-installed, configured, fully managed and supported by EECS Systems, but the users are fully responsible for installing their own OS, software and setup everything else required  for their research. Users have administrator privileges in these devices.

Self-managed desktops are considered as less-trusted devices, and are connected to a separate network. EECS services like printing, group shares, etc are not directly accessible by these devices, but the users can connect to all EECS services they are entitled to by following the relevant guides in our Support Pages.

Any data saved into self-managed desktops are not included in EECS Backups, therefore users are responsible for backing up their research data.

 

IT Regulation

Use of EECS Computers is subject to subject to the University’s IT regulations, as the source of those regulations moves around a lot we hold a copy here.