WiscVPN
There are a variety of campus network resources (e.g., protected department
applications) that can only be accessed by campus-based computers. When you use
a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Charter or TDS, your
network traffic carries an Internet Protocol (IP) address from that vendor,
which may prevent you from accessing these resources.
WiscVPN (Virtual Private Network) software allows eligible users to access these
restricted resources even though they are using a commercial ISP. It
accomplishes this by establishing an encrypted tunnel between a home/remote PC
and the campus network. All campus-bound traffic is routed through the tunnel
with a campus IP address, making that traffic appear to be originating from
on-campus.
VPN also encrypts data while it is in transit, both through regular and wireless
networks. Since wireless networks are notoriously insecure, using VPN can give
you another layer of security and protection, particularly when you’re sending
sensitive information.
By default, WiscVPN provides a dynamically assigned IP address, meaning that you
will get a different IP every time you log in. If you need your IP address to
stay the same when you log in, WiscVPN has a Static IP service available. Static
WiscVPN is limited to departmental use only. Please see the
Static IP page for more information.
Please note, a new flavor of VPN (Virtual Private Network) is available for OSX,
Vista 64 bit and Windows 7. The product is the Cisco AnyConnect Client. If you
are already a WiscVPN user, you do not have to upgrade from the old client
software, as that version will continue to work and be supported.
Please read the FAQs before downloading. You must have a NetID and Internet
access to use WiscVPN.
Computers outside of the UW network are denied access to the VPN client machine while connected to the VPN service. This means that if the client machine is running a web server or Remote Desktop, these local services are not reachable on the client machine from outside of the UW campus network.
WARNING: If you are using WiscVPN on your machine, be sure to have a
host-based firewall running.
Installation Directions and Downloads
