Q&A for Roll-Out of Single Sign-on at U of I

Q: What is the main advantage of Single Sign-on (SSO)?

A: Faculty, staff, and students no longer need to create a separate login and password at Wolfram’s User Portal; they can instead use the familiar U of I login to activate Mathematica and log into Mathematica Online

Q: How will this affect physical or virtual computer labs?

A: Not at all. Departmental system administrators can still use Network Mathematica (which includes MathLM, the license manager software for Mathematica) to install Mathematica on a computer lab image or a Citrix server, just like in the past. MathLM will continue to need a new password each year, the same as in previous years.

Q: How will this affect HPC clusters where we run Mathematica?

A: Not at all (same answer as above). Departmental system administrators can still use Network Mathematica (which includes MathLM, the license manager software for Mathematica) to install Mathematica on an HPC cluster, and the default license provides licensing for 1,000 simultaneous users and up to 8,000 instances of Mathematica for parallel calculations. Larger passwords are available upon request. MathLM will continue to need a new password each year, the same as in previous years.

Q: What if a user wants to run both Mathematica version 13.1 and an older version?

A: WebStore can still provide license keys for the older versions upon request. Contact webstore@illinois.edu

Q: Do individual users need to be on campus VPN or have a network connection to use Mathematica?

A: No. Just like in the past, a network connection to Wolfram’s server is needed to activate the software (in the past, this was through a license key; moving forward, this will be through SSO). After the initial activation, licensing information is local to the machine, and Mathematica will continue to work off-network or off U of I VPN. Mathematica Online continues to need some network connection since it’s a browser-based product.

Q: If a user has a few files stored in Wolfram’s provided cloud storage, do they need to archive those?

A: No. Existing users will be prompted for their Wolfram ID and password when first signing in using SSO, and all the settings and files will be merged with the new SSO account, so everything will be retained.

Q: A user is reporting an issue with SSO where they cannot complete the installation. Who should they talk to for help?

A: Wolfram can help directly at info@wolfram.com or sso-support@wolfram.com if the question is specific to the SSO login step.

Q: A student or faculty member would like to run Mathematica on more than one personal laptop or desktop machine; is that possible?

A: Yes, the site license supports this, and faculty/students can use the instructions in the free software section of WebStore to get an installer for Mathematica for each of their personal machines. They will activate each installation using SSO after running the installer.