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Request access to the Social Science Gateway

To request an account on the Social Science Gateway (SSG), please click here.

Request access to the Synthetic Data Server

Account request procedures for the Synthetic Data Server (SDS) are described here.

We support:

The International Year of Statistics (Statistics2013)

Step 3 – Setting up access to SDS

First, if you have not already done so, verify that you have changed your password on the Social Science Gateway, as per the (common) Step 2. You only need to log onto the Social Science Gateway once in order to change your password. Subsequent connections will be to a different server, called “sds.vrdc.cornell.edu”, but passwords are synchronized with the Social Science Gateway. You will use the password you just changed when logging onto the SDS.

Using SSH not allowed

The SDS is a controlled-access environment. SSH/SCP access is not allowed. If you need to upload data or programs, please ask the relevant data provider (see the “Requesting account” page for contacts).

Using NX

To logon to the SDS, you will be required to use an NX-based remote desktop (no other access is allowed). The Nomachine NX client is free to use.

  1. The web interface to launch NX can be used for quick access (requires Java).

You may encounter some restrictions with graphical applications (SAS is a notorious culprit), or you may wish to leverage a larger screen. You will then want to install the full NX client:

  1. If you do not already have NX installed, follow download and installation instructions at http://www.nomachine.com/documents/client/install.php. You should choose the NX client for the “platform” of your desktop computer (i.e., if you are using a Windows computer to access the SDS, you should download the Windows client).
  2. If using Mac OS X 10.7 or higher, you need to follow these alternate instructions.
  3. Once you have NX installed, you need to configure a “session”. We have prepared a pre-configured NX session config file, downloadable from here. You should unzip it. The file contained within, called ‘SDS.nxs’, should be put into the NX config location
    • $HOME/.nx/config (Linux, Mac)
    • C:Documents and Settings(USERNAME).nxconfig (Windows XP and previous)
    • C:Users(USERNAME).nxconfig (Windows 7, maybe Vista)
  4. You can now open the “NX Client for Windows” (or … for Linux or … for Mac), and should see a sessions called ‘SDS’. Open that, and when prompted for a password, use the password you just created on SSG (and not the password in the Welcome email you received).

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