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Connecting to an Ursa Major research workstation

This guide shows how to connect to a research workstation (a Compute Engine VM) in your Ursa Major project. To create one, see Launching an Ursa Major research workstation.

Costs: research workstations are Tier 2. They are recharged to a lab funding source under an MOU. A running VM is charged whether or not you are connected, so stop it when you are done. See Ursa Major research workstations and KB005: Ursa Major service tiers.

Workstations set up before October 2026: some were set up under the earlier tiers, when workstations were not recharged. If your lab has one, contact research-computing@ucr.edu. Nothing changes without that conversation.

External IP addresses: a public IP address and direct SSH or RDP access are available by request to research-computing@ucr.edu. Without one, connect through the console or an Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) tunnel as shown below.

SSH from the web console (Linux VMs)

  1. Go to the Google Cloud console and select your project.
  2. Open the navigation menu and select Compute Engine, then VM instances.
  3. If the VM is stopped, select it and click Start / Resume.
  4. In the VM's row, click SSH in the Connect column.
  5. An SSH-in-browser window opens and connects you to the VM. Allow it a moment to transfer keys the first time.

SSH with the gcloud command line (Linux VMs)

  1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, or use Cloud Shell in the console.

  2. Sign in and set your project:

    gcloud auth login
gcloud config set project my-lab-project

  3. Connect:

    gcloud compute ssh INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

    Replace INSTANCE_NAME with the VM name and ZONE with its zone (for example us-central1-a). The first time, gcloud creates an SSH key for you.

  4. If the VM has no external IP address, connect through Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP):

    gcloud compute ssh INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE --tunnel-through-iap

    This needs a firewall rule that allows SSH from Google's IAP range. See Google's IAP TCP forwarding guide.

Google's guide: Connect to Linux VMs.

Remote desktop (Windows VMs)

  1. Set a Windows password. In VM instances, click the VM name, then Set Windows password. Or run:

    gcloud compute reset-windows-password INSTANCE_NAME --zone=ZONE

    Store the password somewhere safe, such as a password manager.

  2. Install an RDP client. Windows includes Remote Desktop Connection. On macOS, use Microsoft's Windows App. On Linux, use a client such as Remmina.

  3. Connect. The safer option is an IAP tunnel, which does not open the RDP port to the internet:

    gcloud compute start-iap-tunnel INSTANCE_NAME 3389 \
    --local-host-port=localhost:3389 --zone=ZONE

    Leave that running, then point your RDP client at localhost:3389 and sign in with the username and password from step 1. If you use a different local port, connect to that port instead.

    If your VM has an external IP and a firewall rule that allows RDP from your network only, you can connect to that IP directly. Do not open port 3389 to the whole internet.

  4. Your session ends when you disconnect, but the VM keeps running (and being charged) until you stop it.

Google's guide: Connect to Windows VMs.

Troubleshooting

  • Connection times out: check that the VM is running and that a firewall rule allows SSH (port 22) or RDP (port 3389) from your source, or from the IAP range if you use IAP.
  • Permission denied: you need a role on the project that allows connecting to VMs. Ask your project owner or research-computing@ucr.edu.
Owner: Research Computing Reviewed: 4 Oct 2026
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