[NBLUG/talk] How to access my home computer remotely

[Walter Hansen]

Look into VNC. Think I'm using EchoVNC for the windows servers.

On 12/28/2010 6:33 PM, E Frank Ball III wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 05:12:57PM -0800, Roger House wrote:
>   >  I'm currently running Ubuntu 10.04 on my computer at home, and I'll soon
>   >  need to access this computer from sites away from home.  I'm hoping that
>   >  the access from afar will allow me to drive the home computer more or less
>   >  as if I were sitting in front of it.  I will probably be using a
>   >  laptop when
>   >  away from home, and it may be running some version of Windows; I do not yet
>   >  know if I will have the option to run Ubuntu on the laptop.
>
>
> Roger,
>
> Remote access is easy, but "access from afar will allow me to drive the
> home computer more or less as if I were sitting in front of it."
> requires serious bandwidth (10s of MB), which you probably don't have
> from home.  My remote access is mostly ssh from terminals, exporting
> graphics only when I have too.
>
>
>
>   >  I would very much appreciate detailed instructions on how to go about this.
>   >  Of course, I'll need to leave my home computer running when I'm at a remote
>   >  site.  But, what programs should be installed on the home computer?  What
>   >  permissions should be set up so access from a remote site is allowed?  What
>   >  software is needed on the remote laptop?  How do I make the connection from
>   >  the remote computer to the home computer?  Will I have issues with IP
>   >  addresses?  I use Comcast with a cable modem and a router.  I know
>   >  the router
>   >  provides a local IP address for the home computer, but it seems that the
>   >  remote computer needs more than this.
>
>
> I don't know anything about your router, but it should be configurable
> to port forward select services to your desktop machine.  My router is
> an old Linux box and I use shorewall as a firewall/router application,
> but most people use one of the many consumer router appliances on the
> market.  ssh uses port 22/tcp.  You will need the ssh server installed
> and running on the desktop.
>
> You can access your machine via the IP address of your router, but
> that's not very convenient.  There are a number of places that will
> setup dynamic IP DNS hosting for free:
> http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=dynamic+dns
>
> I host my own DNS, so I haven't tried any of these services.  I have
> scripts that run via cron to monitor my IP for change, and update my DNS
> records automatically.  Or you could just have a monitor script to email
> a new IP to gmail or somewhere it's always accessable.  If your machine
> is always on, the IP won't change except for power/service outages.
>
>> From the windows machine you need an ssh client.  Putty
> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ is the easiest, but
> it doesn't allow exporting any graphics, it's a terminal only.
>
> I'd recommend installing cygwin on the Windows PC.
> http://www.cygwin.com/ It's more complicated to get running, but you get
> an X server so you can import graphical applications to your windows
> deskdtop from linux.
>
> Try and get those things working for a start.  You can get fancier after
> that.
>
> There are a number of remote desktop type applications, but for linux
> the most common is one of the VNC programs like realvnc or tightvnc.
> (They are compatible with each other).  Install the server on the home
> machine and the client on the PC (linux or windows).  It isn't secure to
> run this directly over the internet, so you need to tunnel it thru ssh
> (log in with ssh and export the display back).  Ubuntu comes with a
> remote desktop application which is VNC, you just have to enable it
> (system ->  preferences ->  remote desktop).  VNC uses port 5900/tcp for
> the native desktop (but do NOT forward that thru your router, you don't
> want that exposed on the open internet).
>
> If your comast hsi is 4MB uplink you will find accessing your home
> desktop remotely is very very slow.  Importing a desktop to my home
> machine on a 20MB download link is tolorable for limited use, but I
> still do whatever I can with ssh terminals.
>