Connecting to the SSL VPN
Foreword
The connection via SSL VPN is a service for establishing a secure communications channel to RTE’s FrontOffice via the Internet. This channel is established after authenticating with your certificate from a dedicated website (
here). Once the channel is established all communications with the requested RTE service will be encrypted.
The use of SSL VPN requires the installation of a dedicated tool, installed during the first login to the site. The application is called
Secure Application Manager (SAM).
SSL VPN enables secure access to your mailboxes hosted on RTE’s FrontOffice.
Prerequisite
The website
secure.iservices.rte-france.com must be declared as a trusted site (
here)
IMPORTANT NOTE
Before your first connection, you must verify that your workstation can resolve the address
secure.iservices.rte-france.com
(
see here).
PSIS (Pulse Secure Installation Service) is a Windows service made available on the RTE customer site. This service allows, once installed, to update future SAM versions without requiring the intervention of a person with administrator privileges on the machine.
To do so, download the executable under the link:
http://clients.rte-france.com/lang/an/visiteurs/accueil/portail.jsp
And decompress the compressed file:
The following window appears. Click "
Yes".
It will be automatically activated at every operating system launch.
First connection
This paragraph applies only to your first login to the SSL VPN with Internet Explorer.
IMPORTANT NOTE
The first connection must be made by a computer specialist with Administrator rights on your workstation in order to install the SAM application.
Before continuing, you need to
disable ActiveX controls on Internet Explorer. To do so, press the "
Alt" key on the keyboard.
A menu bar at the top of the window. Then click the
Tools button, and make sure "
ActiveX Filtering" is
not selective (see the following screenshot).
Launch your browser and go to the following website:
The following window appears:
Select your certificate then click "
OK".
If necessary, this window will ask for the password that protects the private key associated to your certificate.
The browser displays a link to install SAM (if it’s not already installed on your computer):
If no manual intervention is performed, the following installation pop-up appears:
If necessary, the following window appears:
Click "
Yes".
The Pulse Secure client then installs and the installation of the SAM application starts:
Wait during the installation.
If the following window appears, click
"Yes".
Once the installation is completed, the following page appears:
If your Internet access requires authentication to a proxy, a window appears asking your login and password. Enter them and confirm.
Then, the icon
appears in your task-bar:
Click the "
Sign out" button ( top right of the page ) to end the session:
Using the SSL VPN
Establishing the connection
Launch your browser and go to the following website:
The following window appears:
Select your certificate then click "
OK".
If necessary, a window will ask you the password that protects the private key associated with your certificate.
If necessary, the window below appears. Click "
Yes".
The SAM application launches automatically and the following page appears:
If your Internet access requires authentication to a proxy, a window appears asking your login and password. Enter them and confirm.
Then, the icon
appears in your taskbar.
Notes:
- The certificate is only used to establish the connection to the SSL VPN.
- To close the SSL VPN session, click the "Sign out" button ( top right of the page ).
Use case to access hosted mailboxes
The SSL VPN can be used to access mailboxes hosted on the FrontOffice with a standard email client.
Access to hosted mailboxes requires the SSL VPN connection to be established (
see here).
The Email account configuration in your mail client is then to be made with the following parameters:
- Mail server type: POP Server
- POP server address: pop.services.rte-france.com
- SMTP server address: smtp.services.rte-france.com
When your access to RTE’s FrontOffice is provided, you will receive your login name, your password and your email address.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Because the messages are transferred through a secure channel, sending and receiving messages do not require the use of a certificate to encrypt messages.