Long-term visitors to the IMA may have access to the university's central modem pool, managed by Networking and Telecommunications Services (NTS). If you would like to use your modem to connect from off-campus, you will need to obtain a University staff computer account, which is separate from your IMA computer account. If you are a long-term visitor or postdoc, you should get your University staff account shortly after your arrival. If you are not a long-term visitor but have a vital need to use the modem pool, we may be able to make special arrangements under some circumstances. The telephone number for the modem pool is (612) 627-4250.
The campus modems are V.90 compliant devices that operate at speeds of up to 56 Kbps. The modems are capable of negotiating both PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) and SLIP (Serial Line IP) connections. After your modem connects, you will need to make sure your University staff account username is entered at the Username: prompt, and that your staff account password is entered at the Password: prompt. If successful, you will be presented with a slip-server> prompt. At the prompt, you may either enter the name of a machine you would like to make a ssh connection to (for example, shell.ima.umn.edu), or you may enter ppp to start up a PPP connection.
You should use an SSH client such as PuTTY for the Windows or the Mac. PuTTY is freeware, and we do have a version on our server at http://www.ima.umn.edu/putty.exe although it is most likely not the most recent version.
You can use mail.ima.umn.edu as your inbound and outbound mail server with the SMTP authentication thru your IMA login-name and password if you use IMAP and SSL.
If you have an university X.500 Internet ID, first fifty (50) hours per month of connect time are free, but you will be charged $4 for every additional thirty (50) hours or fraction thereof of connect time. You can keep track of how much connect time you've used in a month by checking
If you have questions about the operation of the modem pools, contact Academic and Distributed Computing Services (ADCS) at Shepherd Labs 152, or call (612) 626-4276.
For remote qccess to the UofM modem pool, check URL http://www.umn.edu/nts/800/remoteaccess.shtml.