Welcome @ Computers & Networks
of the Department of Computer Science

Login accounts and passwords

You have received a departmental login name and an activation code; please use the activation code to set an initial password as soon as possible on https://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/ac.You can read more about this account and the departmental services on http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/. A shorter, bulleted list of the most important items on this page, is available on our getting started overview.

Besides this departmental login name, you probably also have at least one university account (u, m, r or s followed by 7 digits). The university account(s) must be used for services offered by other parts of the university and for your personnel or student affairs. More information about these accounts (and how to activate them) can be found on https://account.kuleuven.be/ and/or at the bottom of https://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/me.

E-Mail & Calendar

With all of the above accounts, an e-mail address and calendar is associated. We strongly recommend to take a moment to get acquainted with all of these e-mail addresses and calendars and to set them up in the way you like best. For most of these e-mail addresses / calendars you have the choice to either store the e-mail / events in the associated mailbox / calendar or to forward it to another e-mail address / calendar. It is important that you know which goes where and to read it regularly.

• University personnel accounts (u-accounts) have an e-mail address of the form Givenname.Surname@kuleuven.be.
• University student and guest accounts (r-accounts, s-accounts or m-accounts) have an e-mail address of the form Givenname.Surname@student.kuleuven.be and/or Givenname.Surname@guest.kuleuven.be.
• Departmental accounts that were created before summer 2020 have an e-mail address of the form Givenname.Surname@cs.kuleuven.be - mail for that address is forwarded to the corresponding @kuleuven.be address.

Computers and networks

Do not just plug in your computer (neither laptop nor desktop) to just any wall socket. We have far more wall sockets than switch ports and therefore a specific wall socket might not be connected or connected to a different network than your computer needs. If you connect it to the wrong network, all kinds of alarms might be raised. Moreover, a new computer must be registered in our configuration before it can connect to our networks. Get acquainted or ask for help before plugging in a computer. More information about using computers at the department can be found on http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/services/computers/.

You can however use the wall sockets with a red label on them (mostly in public areas and meeting rooms). Those are connected to the university-wide campusnet network on which you need to authenticate with your university account before you get a working network connection. More information about campusnet can be found on http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/security/campusnet/.

Besides this cabled/wired campusnet network there are also a number of wireless networks. Personnel can/must use their university u-account on both the kuleuven and/or eduroam networks, If you have a university a-, m-, r- or s-account or an eduroam-account of your home-institution, you can (only) use it on the eduroam network. Other guests must use the kuleuven-guest network with a guest account. Take care: the kuleuven and eduroam wireless networks are encrypted but the kuleuven-guest wireless network is not encrypted. More information about the wireless networks can be found on http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/security/wireless/.

The campusnet, kuleuven-guest, kuleuven and eduroam are university-wide networks and therefore outside the departmental firewall. When connected to them or to another external network, access to departmental services is more limited than when connected to a departmental network.

Most research groups have at least one server on which you can store files (often limited by quota). Most of these servers are backed up daily such that your files are safe, even if something goes wrong. Most research groups also have other computers that serve specific purposes. Get acquainted with them; ask your colleagues or system group representative.

Telephone

We use the Microsoft Exchange&Lync telephone/communication system as provided by KU Leuven. This means you have a choice between using a hardphone or a softphone device. Hardphones can be used without a computer but softphones can only be used when attached to and in combination with software on a computer. More information is available on http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/system/software/Exchange/.

Help

Each research group has at least one contact person (the system group representative) for help with your computer/network/software problems. Get acquainted with them; they will be your first stop on your way to a solution.
There is a local helpdesk (helpdesk@cs.kuleuven.be) for help with your departmental login account, network connection and/or other departmental services.
There is also a university-wide helpdesk (http://icts.kuleuven.be/help/) for help with your university account(s) or other university-wide services (e.g. the HPC cluster or plotter, etc.).