We have a somewhat friendly portal where you can do some management of your RCC virtual machines. You can access it at https://researchcompute.canterbury.ac.nz with your UC username and password (windows users on campus may be automatically logged in).
After login
Straight after login you are presented with the catalog screen
Note that as a regular user you will not be offered as many top menu item. The catalog shows you the types of VM you have been allowed to request. In the present state of the RCC you should not request any machines - unless you have expressly been instructed to do so.
The Deployments screen
The most useful item for most people is the "Deployments" screen in which all your current virtual machines are listed and allows you to do some high level operations on them.
If you have more than one projects using VMs on the RCC you can refine the selection displayed by using filters. Access to filters is by clicking on the sieve icon 
.
Most of the options available in the "actions" drop down menu either don't apply to the RCC setup or are dangerous. So don't use it.
You can view machine details and some more interesting options by clicking on the blue icon or the machine deployment type on the left.
Deployment management
Once you click on the blue icon, you are taken to a more detailed screen to manage the deployment. The deployment is not only your virtual machine but also all the other components that VMware thought necessary to create for your use. It may include networks and NAT box as well as your virtual machine.
Clicking on each components of the deployment brings more details about them. The bottom one with a name starting with "UCRCC" is your virtual machine proper.
The blue cog at the right of the deployment name offer the same actions as the "actions" menu in the previous screen (and the top right of this screen) and should be avoided.
Clicking on "History" will show you some details of the provisioning process as well as any actions you request on any item of the deployment through this portal.
Virtual machine management
Clicking on your virtual machine will bring more details about it and a blue cog will appear on the right of the machine name.
The menu from the blue cog wheel is the most relevant for managing the virtual machine. It is contextual, that is, different options may be offered depending on the machine state. If the machine is powered off, an option will be offered to power it on. If it is powered on, an option will be offered to power it off.
Console
The most interesting option apart from managing the power state of the machine is access to the console. You should do this by clicking on "Connect to remote console", it will open up a new tab or window with a console to the VM. Note that browser pop up prevention may interfere. If you don't get a new tab/window you may see a red flag in the right part of your browser URL bar. Follow instructions there to allow this particular pop up.
A "console" is a direct access to the machine as if it was physically in front of you. It allows you access to the machine even if its network configuration is broken, which may be convenient if you apply command on the machine where the network will go down - an upgrade to a new version of ubuntu for example. If you cannot login into windows after you ask for a restart it may have started updating itself. In that case you won't be able to connect to it via RDP while it is going on, but the console will show you the windows upgrade information normally displayed on a regular machine. The main inconvenient of the console is that you cannot cut and paste from your host machine to the console screen. Everything needs to be typed.
On ubuntu VM, the user named "rccuser" is normally setup for passwordless login on the console (if you enable password for rccuser then console login will also switch to password login).
NAT rules
By default virtual machines with addresses in 10.xxx.xxx.xxx and 202.xxx.xxx.xxx are setup in virtual network bubles insulating them from other machines. To access the virtual machine you have to go through an "edge box" which can be thought has an individual firewall.
By default the edge will provide NAT rules (Network Address Translation) to allow you to login in the box by opening the appropriate port: 22 for ssh on linux, 3389 for RDP on windows. Clicking on the "Edge" named box in vRealize will show the current set of NAT rules.
You can add more rules if you need to. An example would be setting a rstudio server. By default the rstudio server listens on port 8787 for you to login with a web browser (at address http://IP_address:8787). Without adding a NAT rule for port 8787 you wouldn't be able to access the server. To add rules you have to click on the line which starts with "RCCNATPrivate". This will bring a panel very similar to the one for the "Edge".
But you now have a blue cog on the right side of line starting with "RCCNATPrivate". Clicking on the cog will bring a small menu with the line "Change NAT rules". Clicking on this will allow you to add or remove NAT rules at will.
If you are unsure of what you are doing, ask a member of the team to do it for you.