Remote Connections

[seanmcq]

I know a fair bit about networking, but mostly on router/cisco side of things, but as far as Windows remote connections goes, I don't know much about. Basically my sister has a computer at her home but she always needs help with some things and to get me to load things or show her things. We both have a connection through Pipex which has a dynamic IP address.

Is it possible for me to set up some sort of remote connection from my PC to her PC so that if she needs help again that I can just connect to her computer. I am aware that this is possible, but I'm not sure if it works without a static IP address. I have a copy of PCAnywhere but I've never used it before.

Any help would be appreciated
Sean

 

[Nodsu]

You need to open the relevant ports in her firewall and install the software of course. Make sure her ISP allows inbound connections.

As for the IP address.. You could just send her to www.whatismyip.com whenever help is needed. Or get a dynamic DNS name from somewhere like www.dyndns.org. They offer small programs too that update the hostname whenever needed.

 

[TypeX45]

You can use remote assistence to connect to her. Just have her type in your email address. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/remoteassist/viaemail.mspx

 

[kaliwal]

Yes you need remote asistance BUT i think you need this link http://www.petri.co.il/what's_remote_assistanc.htm

 

[mephisto_007]

Try access-remote-pc it the easiest setup and done its job...

 

[seanmcq]

Thanks everyone. The Remote Desktop in Windows XP does the job. I set her up a Dynamic DNS on DynDNS (Cheers Nodsu) and downloaded the updater onto her computer so she doesn't have to find her IP address if she needs help. So I can just log onto her computer with the DNS address and her Windows password.

I had to open TCP & UDP ports 3389 to allow Remote Desktop through her firewall. Are there any obvious security issues over leaving these permanetly open? As with the DNS update would it be better for her to leave it closed until she needs help then I can just get her to open it, instead of it permanently updating the DNS? I don't want to leave her suceptible to attack.

Slightly off topic here, but with remote desktop is there a way to specify a computer on your LAN you want to connect to. I have my router and 3 PC's connected into it. If I connect to my public IP address from my work computer it always goes to a certain computer on the network. Is there any way I could get it to connect to the other two? I suppose I could run remote desktop on the one I'm connected to and connect to the other computers but surely there's an easier way?

Thanks for any help
Greatly appreciated

 

[Nodsu]

Unless omeone discovers a vulnerability in RD, then it's OK to have it open. There's a danger of brute-force attacks of course. Someone just might guess the user credentials one day. I'd recommend changing the port to something non-default like 33890 for example. This way trivial port scanners won't find the service.

There is no problem with the hostname being updated.

Connecting to many computers on the LAN depends on your router..

If it supports advanced port forwarding where you can specify the destination port on the local machine, then you just forward sth like 3389->x.x.x.x:3389 3390->y.y.y.y:3389 where x.x.x.x and y.y.y.y are computers on your LAN.

If you have a dumb router, then you have to make RD run on diffent ports on the computers so you forward sth like 3389->x.x.x.x and 3390->y.y.y.y where y.y.y.y has been configured to run RD on port 3390.

Either way you have to tell the RD client to connect to a different port a la you put in your.wan.ip.address:3390 in the destination field.

 

[seanmcq]

Hi Nodsu

Thanks very much for your help. To clarifiy on the above; if I want to change the port remote access runs over, say to 33890 as you say. The I just open 33890 on my firewall (instead of the default) ports, then instead of just going to the wan address, I go to x.x.x.x:33890?

 

[Nodsu]

Yes, that's it.

Of course, in order to make the RDP service use the new port, you have to change some values in the Windows registry.