Control Computer Remotely

GWC Community GWC Hive Mind
#1

All,

Let me start by saying I am barely a novice at this. With the help of Chuck and Juan I figured out a solution but am by no means this is the only approach. I welcome others to share how they have solved for this challenge so that we as a community can make the best-in-class approach and learn from each other.

My situation
In my home I have a Mac on my desk and my old PC in the basement which serves now primarily as storage for video and other applications I only have on my PC. I also have an iPhone and an iPad.

My challenge
I want to control the PC in basement from my Mac, iPhone or iPad while on my own network. I have monkeyed with connecting to the PC when I am on the road with some success, but I recently changed ISPs so haven’t gone back down this road yet.

My solution
I understand there are some paid applications you can use which other GWC members have had success with. My solution took the no cost approach.

For PC: TightVNC
For Mac: JollyFastVNC
For iPhone / iPad: VNC Lite

Configuration
This is where I will freely admit I’m going to play a little loose as I am not uninstalling and reinstalling the apps for purposes of writing this down. General notes:

  1. Start with the machine you will be primarily connecting to and install the application on it. Things to pay attention to:
  • Note the Server Port (don’t let this terminology scare you off): I believe it defaults to 5900 or 5500. Simply note it for when you install on the sending computers
  • Require authentication. Always a good idea. Remember that you are by definition opening up a computer. If you are not interested in accessing your computer from outside your network there is a lower risk, but there is still a risk. Do yourself a favor and require authentication
  • Note IP address of computer: If this is on your pc simply mouse over the TightVNC icon in your tray and it will tell you what the IP address of the computer is.
  1. On control computers simply do this process in reverse. Install the appropriate applications and create entries for the computer you will be connecting to.

That is pretty much it in a nutshell. Let the discussion begin! How do we do this better?

#2

For a good like year and a half I used team viewer from my netbook to my desktop. I tried the teamviewer app for the iPhone and it was…well it was garbage. I’ll definitely be trying your solution in the future

#3

The price is right - free - for remote control.
if you need to move files then you have to pay.

https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

check it out.

#4

I would suggest setting up an account at dyndns.org (they’re free!) and running their client to update your ip address on a regular basis. That way, you don’t have to remember your home IP address when you’re away, you just remember your url which never changes.

I have a Linux computer on my network that I connect to remotely as well. I use a program called Putty that runs on Windows to connect to it from anywhere with an Internet connection, and once connected I can piggy-back off of that ssh (which is secure) connection to run a VNC connection to a windows machine on the same network. It’s a bit complicated and possibly overly secure, but security is important to me so I try to err on the side of caution. I don’t have time to detail it all right now but I’ll come back and fill out the details if someone is curious.

#5

Best way to do this, use Linux and just SSH or use NX… if you have to use VNC, care should go in to security…

#6

Yeah, which is why you should tunnel it through SSH. Even though you can’t connect to the computer over VNC without knowing the password, everything else is sent as raw data, so someone can packet sniff and find out what you’re doing.

This doesn’t seem all that bad until you start typing in passwords and credit card numbers. Those are easy to spot in a stream of data.