Azure Lab Services -- Students

Owned by Thuc Phung
Last updated: Jan 05, 2024 by Ryan Drescher
3 min read

Azure Lab Services is a cloud based classroom enabling students and instructors to access virtual machines (VM's) to complete lab assignments within iSchool courses. In order to access these VM's your instructor will need to invite you to the lab environment.

Register for your lab:


Your instructor will invite you to the lab, which will generate an email your Syracuse University email address. Within this email you will need click on the 'Register for the lab' button.


After you have clicked on 'Register for the lab', you will need to login with your Syracuse University email address and password.

Log In to Azure Lab Services:

After you have received an invitation and registered for the lab, you can log into Azure Lab services by navigating to labs.azure.com.

Connecting to an Azure Lab Services VM:


  1. Login to labs.azure.com with your Syracuse University email address and password.

  2. Make sure your Virtual Machine is Running using the toggle (this process may take a few minutes, refresh your browser as needed).



  3. Select the networked-computer icon in the bottom right, as shown in the following image, to connect to the lab's VM using the RDP file.



  4. Do one of the following steps:

    1. For Windows virtual machines, save the RDP file to the hard disk. Open the RDP file to connect to the virtual machine. Use the provided  user name and password  to sign in to the machine.
      (Please ignore the certificate warning for RDP connections)
    2. For Linux virtual machines, you can use the provided SSH link to connect to them.

    3. If you are using a Mac to connect to a lab VM, follow instructions in the next section.

Connecting to Azure Lab Services VM's on a Mac:

  1. Mac users will need to install the Microsoft Remote Desktop application from the Apple App store to use the RDP protocol.

  2. Then users can select the networked-computer icon in the bottom right, save the RDP file and open the RDP file in the Microsoft Remote Desktop App to connect to the virtual machine.

  3. Use the provided  user name and password  to sign in to the machine.

VM Shutdown:

  1. Please remember to probably shutdown your VM as anything hosting in the cloud will be metered.



  2. Idle time for VMs are as follow:



    Additional information on how to Connect to an Azure Lab Services VM using Remote Desktop Protocol on a Mac.