Maintaining the ability to remote desktop after I move.

[Stuart]

I am moving out of my parents house soon but I need to
find a way to remain connected to their computers through
our network so that I can fix things when they are
running into problems.

Right now we all use Windows XP Home and are part of the
same Workgroup. I am able to use something called Real
VNC in order to Remotely connect to their computers and
take over their desktops when they need my help.

Since I am moving out, I would like to be able to retain
this ability to help them but I don't know how to go
about it. First of all, Real VNC allows you to connect
to any PC on the internet as long as you have that
computers IP address and they have VNC Server installed
on their PC. The only thing is that the computers at
home run on cable modem through a Linksys router. In
other words, the router is acting as DHCP server. So
that standard 192.168.1.101 and 192.168.1.102 IPs only
work locally, but won't work outside the home network.
To make matters worse, the router is picking up it's IP
from a remote DHCP server; in other words, I have no idea
what IP address it is using because ipconfig /all only
shows the IP addy that is administered to each PC by the
router.

The only thing I could think of is when I move out of the
house, have my computer become a member of their
workgroup. But is that even possible form a remote
location? Or do you have to be connected to the same
router in order to do that? If that's possible then I
wouldn't even need IPs... I could just use computer names.

Either way, can someone please suggest a solution to this
please. Thank you very much.

 

[adrian916]

if your router is using a dynamicIP then register it with
dyndns.org (or some other similar free service). This
allows you to connect to the router by name instead of
having to know the IP (eg: home.dyndns.net).This will
allow you to vnc into the router. In order to get on to
one of the pc's behind it, you will need to use port
forwarding (in the advanced section of the linksys). By
default, vnc uses port 5900, but check your settings just
in case. Unfortunately, you can only port forward to one
pc, so pick the one you are most likely to need access
to. If you need to access the other, you will have to log
on to the linksys remotely (check remote management is
enabled) and change the ip that the port is forwarded to.
It's not necessarily the most elegant or efficient way to
do it, but it does work. (just check you don't have any
firewalls in the way that may block the vnc request)

HTH

 

[Guest]

So if I register my router with dyndns.org as MyRouter
for example, I will be able to VNC from anywhere in the
world just by typing MyRouter? And since the router will
be set to port forward, it will pass any connections to
it directly to the computer that is specified in port
forwarding?

Does dyndns.org registration cost anything?

 

[Guest]

I checked out dyndns.org but I do not know which option
you were speaking of. Can you please help me through
this. The services include:

Custom DNS
Secondary DNS
Dynamic DNS
Static DNS
Domain Registration
Domain Transfers


I believe it is dynamiic DNS:
Dynamic DNS service points a fixed hostname in one of our
domains to your ISP-assigned dynamic IP address, allowing
your computer to be accessed from various locations on
the Internet without knowing your current IP.

Please check out the site and let me know.

 

[Guest]

OK well I signed up with dyndns.org and I used the
dynamic dns service to create the host name
MyRouter.mine.nu and it gave me an IP address. What is
this IP address. Is it the IP{ that my ISP dunmically
administered to me? or is it an IP that dyndns created?
Now how do I apply that to my router? Thanks for your
help.

 

[adrian916]

you seem to have worked out most of it. when you want to
vnc onto a pc, open the vnc viewer as normal, but instead
of typing an ip address, type the name of the router (the
one that you just registered e.g:-
myrouter.dnsalias.net).This will find the router, and the
port forwarding will find the corresponding pc.

The only thing that may prevent it is if a firewall gets
in the way.

It's not a good idea to advertise your routers name
though, as this will let anyone know you have vnc
installed - even if it is password protected. (you can
always change it - off the top of my head, i think dyndns
let you register 5 or 8 names without charge)

Adrian



The IP address that you are seeing is assigned by your
ISP as usual. All dyndns.org are doing is keeping an eye
on what ip address your router is getting and mapping
that to the registered name. This way, the address can
change frequently but the name remains constant.

 

[Stuart]

Wait a second Adrian. That doesn't make sense. All I did
was register with the website and pick a name. If I use
VNC from an outside source and just type in MyRouter, how
the heck is it going to find my router? Or am I supposed
to use the ip addy they provided? And even if so, how
does my router know to use that IP? I'm confused. Once i
have that all udnerstood I need to do the port
forwarding.

Please explain how the router now knows to be called
MyRouter to the internet world when I didn't make any
configuratino changes in the router. Thanks.

Stuart

 

[adrian916]

-----Original Message-----
Wait a second Adrian. That doesn't make sense. All I did
was register with the website and pick a name. If I use
VNC from an outside source and just type in MyRouter, how
the heck is it going to find my router? Or am I supposed
to use the ip addy they provided? And even if so, how
does my router know to use that IP? I'm confused. Once i
have that all udnerstood I need to do the port
forwarding.

Please explain how the router now knows to be called
MyRouter to the internet world when I didn't make any
configuratino changes in the router. Thanks.

Stuart
.
when you picked the name for your router, dyndns.org

looked at what ip address your computer/router was using
(as provided by your isp). It now maps that address
against your router name(assuming you were connecting to
the internet through your router when you registered). As
and when your isp changes your ip address, dyndns.org
will automatically update its records so that your router
name now points to your new IP. This way, you don't need
to know what address you are using at any given time -
only the name.

Make sure your router is enabled for remote management,
then try openng internet explorer on any pc and in the
address bar, type your routers name. For instance, if you
called your router "homerouter" and chose the dyndns
extension of ".dnsalias.net" then you would
type "homerouter.dnsalias.net" press go and you should
get the login page of your router!

now if you use vnc viewer from a remote computer, just
enter connect to "homerouter.dnsalis.net" and vnc will
find the router over the internet, the port forwarding
will then direct it on to the specified pc.

(you won't be able to use vnc in this way if you are on
the same LAN as the host - in that case you have to
connect via computer name/private ip). As I said before,
just watch out for firewalls. This gave me no end of
failed connections. Once i turned off the firewall it got
straight through, so just had to reconfigure it after
that with my pc's address/subnet.in the trusted zone.

I hope this makes sense to you. The best thing is to try
it.Log on to the router via it's new name in IE (from
inside or outside the LAN), then try vnc from outside the
lan. (If you router is on a cable modem, you could always
use a dial up connection from your pc for testing, so
that you are physically in the same room as the host, but
on a completely separate subnet)

If it works, then don't worry too much about HOW it's
working, just enjoy it!!

Adrian

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Once then
looked at what ip address your computer/router was using
(as provided by your isp). It now maps that address
against your router name(assuming you were connecting to
the internet through your router when you registered). As
and when your isp changes your ip address, dyndns.org
will automatically update its records so that your router
name now points to your new IP. This way, you don't need
to know what address you are using at any given time -
only the name.

Make sure your router is enabled for remote management,
then try openng internet explorer on any pc and in the
address bar, type your routers name. For instance, if you
called your router "homerouter" and chose the dyndns
extension of ".dnsalias.net" then you would
type "homerouter.dnsalias.net" press go and you should
get the login page of your router!

now if you use vnc viewer from a remote computer, just
enter connect to "homerouter.dnsalis.net" and vnc will
find the router over the internet, the port forwarding
will then direct it on to the specified pc.

(you won't be able to use vnc in this way if you are on
the same LAN as the host - in that case you have to
connect via computer name/private ip). As I said before,
just watch out for firewalls. This gave me no end of
failed connections. Once i turned off the firewall it got
straight through, so just had to reconfigure it after
that with my pc's address/subnet.in the trusted zone.

I hope this makes sense to you. The best thing is to try
it.Log on to the router via it's new name in IE (from
inside or outside the LAN), then try vnc from outside the
lan. (If you router is on a cable modem, you could always
use a dial up connection from your pc for testing, so
that you are physically in the same room as the host, but
on a completely separate subnet)

If it works, then don't worry too much about HOW it's
working, just enjoy it!!

Adrian
.
I forgot to add - if you are accessing the router via

IE, you may need to specify the http and the remote
access port e.g http://homerouter.dnsalias.net:8080

Adrian