Where Can I Get a Short-Term Network Guest Account?

Where can I get a guest account?

You should talk to the person or department who is sponsoring your visit to campus. If you are here for a conference, the conference organizer may have arranged guest accounts for all attendees. For less formal visits, students, faculty, and staff can create two guest accounts that last for up to three days.

Your campus contact (network administrator, conference organizer, friend, etc.) will need to give you two or more pieces of information:

• Your guest account name
  (usually vpn and a number, such as vpn121)
  
• Your guest password
  (automatically generated by the guest account creation page)
  
• VPN configuration directions (optional)
  You have two ways to identify yourself as a campus guest account holder in order to connect to the network: UIUCnet QuickConnect or the CITES VPN. For more information, see Guest accounts: Which method should I use to connect?.

Keep your account name and password information with you. You will need this information every time you connect to QuickConnect or the CITES VPN.

Where do I connect?

After you receive a guest account, you have a wide range of locations from which you can connect to the Internet.

• Wireless network (on campus)

  If you want to use the UIUCnet Wireless network, make sure that the area you're in is covered by wireless networking. New network access points are being added constantly. See the Wireless Locations and Network Access Map pages for the latest information.
  
  You can use either QuickConnect or the CITES VPN to authenticate, depending on the level of network access you need. For more information, see Guest accounts: Which method should I use to connect?.

• Wired network (on campus)

  If you have a laptop that has an Ethernet port, you can bring an Ethernet cable and plug in to an Ethernet port at any of the Walkup locations on campus. See Walkup Computing Locations to find a convenient place.
  
  As with wireless access, you can use either QuickConnect or the CITES VPN to authenticate, depending on the level of network access you need. For more information, see Guest accounts: Which method should I use to connect?.

• Off-campus networks (wired or wireless)

  QuickConnect access is not available from off campus. However, you can use the CITES VPN to securely connect to UIUCnet from any location, on or off campus, while your guest account is valid.

Note: For information about other CITES guest services, see the Guest Services section.