How to connect to remote computer?

[itdept]

How to connect to remote computer?

I'm sure this is a stoopid kweschun, and as soon as someone points me to the answer, it'll be forehead smacking time... you'll probably be able to hear the DUH! wherever you are... but I've looked and looked, and I think (I *hope*) the problem is that I'm just using the wrong terminology... and/or looking in the wrong place(s)...

Here's what I need to do:

The viewer is at location A, behind a DHCP router/firewall. His computer's IP address on his LAN is 192.168.1.5 although the router's WAN address is 70.70.70.70

The server is at location B, also behind a DHCP router/firewall. Her computer's IP address on her LAN is 192.168.1.41 (her LAN also has another computer with IP 192.168.1.5), and her router's WAN address is 71.71.71.71

Right now, they are successfully using logmein.com to connect the two, no problems other than slowth... so we'd like to use UltraVNC instead, to speed things up as well as enabling file xfer and whatever other goodies may be useful.

Both of the routers are DLink something-or-others - actually, one is an 824 and I think the other is an 804 - the 824 includes a WLAN interface and the other is strictly wired.

Where should I be looking?

[mattice06082]

At location B (with PC running the server as a service) you need to set up port forwarding in the router to forward vnc traffic (ports 5800 and 5900 by default) to the machine running the server.

Then from location A you'd run the viewer and type in location B's public IP (71.71.71.71) which will get the traffic to the router that will forward it on to the VNC server.

Notes:

• 1. public IP address typically not static so you should set up a free DynDNS account to track the public IP address of location B.
  2. on machine running the server you'll need to set up your security software to allow this traffic; http://www.portforward.com/english/rout ... rindex.htm is helpful for this

[fredtheman]

How to connect to remote computer?

Not a stupid question at all. Stupid questions are those never asked.

Unlike other remote control apps, with VNC, you have the choice of which PC initiates the connection:
- by default, the server (ie. the PC you want to drive from a remote PC) is launched, and waits for incoming connections on TCP5900. If a firewall stands between you and the server, it must be set up to allow incoming connections to TCP5900 and forward packets to the host running the server
- if you prefer (better solution, as most users don't even know what a firewall is, much less how to map ports), you can have the server connect out to the viewer that you have listening for connections on your PC. If this case, it's on your firewall that you need to map port (TCP5500, in this case).

To make things easier, UVNC offers the SingleClick alternative, which is a stipped-down server that can only connect out, and provides a list of hosts to connect to, so users only have to double-click a name... and be connected. We use this solution a lot with our customers.