VPN Access for Saint Mary's College

Virtual Private Network

The Saint Mary's College VPN is currently only available for College-owned laptops running macOS or Windows operating systems.

Faculty and staff needing assistance with the VPN on their College-owned laptop should contact the Helpdesk (helpdesk@saintmarys.edu, 574-284-4715).

The purpose of a virtual private network (VPN) is to allow members of the SMC community to connect to the campus network from a remote location in a secure fashion. Connecting using the VPN allows you—from a remote location—to access college resources that are normally restricted to on-campus computers. Services available (or more easily available) via VPN include:

• Access to home drives on fs1 (also called "H: drives")
• Access to shared drives on the server "mavis" (typically mounted as P: on Windows)
• Access to Banner Forms
• Access to Argos
• Printing to networked printers on campus

Accessing off-campus services

Please note that using the VPN offers no benefit for accessing services that are hosted off campus. This includes the databases listed on the college's web proxy page. You must still use the web proxy to access these databases. Accessing them can be done when you are connected via the VPN or not, but connecting to the VPN explicitly to access off-campus services such as these is a waste of computing resources.

NOTE: The VPN is only for use off campus. The VPN provides access to services otherwise limited to on-campus access when you are physically located off campus. There is no benefit to using the VPN while you are on campus.