|
Learn how to setup your PC for access from another physical location over the network or internet! Remote access is quickly growing into a very popular trend today. With remote access, you can see and control a offsite computer with your own monitor, keyboard and mouse as if you were there. How it works is you install a server version of the program on the computer being accessed and a viewer version of the program on the control computer. The control computer uses the internet to reach the remote computer and then enters in a password before being allowed to access and/or control the remote computer. Being able to access a computer remotely has endless benefits. Imagine being able to grab files or even work on the files on your office computer, but from home! Imagine being able to show your parents how to print from a from halfway across the country. People can use it to monitor their children and employees. Jokesters like myself can use it to pull pranks on our friends. The possibilities are endless and it's time you take advantage of this new technology.
There are very many REMOTE ACCESS programs out there that claim to be the best and have the most features. Some charge a monthly fee (AVOID THESE!), and some charge a one-time fee. What many people don't know about is that there are also FREE REMOTE ACCESS programs that work just as well as the paid versions. They key things you are looking for in a remote access program is it's security and ease-of-use. Microsoft Windows XP comes with a free built-in remote desktop feature but it's hard to setup and requires you to mess around with all sorts of Windows settings - hackers in the past have found a security flaw in it to gain access and wreck havoc on Windows users. Usually, I like the free ones simply because they are easier to setup, don't hog memory with fancy graphics, and are simple to use. Of course, being free helps, too. Our program of choice for today is VNC available from www.realvnc.com This great FREE tool allows you to access even computers with different operating systems; for example, a PC could access a Mac, and a Mac could access a Linux machine and more. See the site for details. NOTE: From here on, I will refer to the remote computer as the one that you are connecting to, and the local computer as the controlling computer. 1) From this point on, I will assume that you are sitting at the computer to be accessed remotely and that we will setup the control computer AFTER this one. First, download the setup files from www.realvnc.com and after you've downloaded BOTH the installer AND the viewer for your OS, double-click and run the installer. Leave all the settings at default unless you know what you're doing. Assuming you left everything alone and simply clicked next during setup, a VNC Server Properties (Service Mode) window will pop up when the installation is complete. There, you should click on "Configure" to setup a password. You can fool around with the rest of the settings later but for now, we'll just click "OK". NOTE: IF YOU DON'T HAVE A ROUTER, SKIP TO STEP# 2) Every computer has an IP address; you can think of it as a phone number to the computer. Most computers are set to obtain their IP automatically. We will have to change this, or else VNC won't work after you restart your computers. First you have to look up your computer's IP on the network a.k.a. "local IP". You can do this by clicking on Start > Run (bottom right of the list), and type in "cmd". After you click "OK", a command prompt appears. Type in "ipconfig" and hit Enter. You will see a list of numbers. The 3 sets of data that you want to write down at this moment is the IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Default Gateway. To set a static IP to your computer, go to Control Panel > Network Connections and right-click on Local Area Connection, then click Properties. In the window that appears, scroll down inside the middle window and select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and click on the Properties button. Inside the next window that shows up, click on the radio button "Use the following IP address:" and start entering in the data you wrote down 2 minutes ago. Everything will be the same EXCEPT, for the IP address. For the IP address, you want to use the same first 3 numbers, but change the last one to be 20 higher than the number you wrote down. For example: if your IP address was 192.168.1.101, we will now enter 192.168.1.121. The reason for this is to avoid IP conflicts with other computers on your network. If you network has over 20 computers, you might want to add 50 instead. From here you want to Click "OK" to exit this window and Click "OK" again on the Local Area Connection Properties window as well. 3) The next step would be setting up your router to forward the remote access signal to your computer. Basically, the remote access signal (PORT 5900 by default) will reach your router and try to access a computer. Of course, you have more than 1 computer on the network and so you would to tell the router that all traffic on PORT 5900 should be forwarded to THIS computer. How do we do that? It's not as hard as you think. Your router has an IP, it's the default gateway number that you wrote down earlier. For most people, it will be something like 192.168.1.1. or 192.168.2.1 or some variation of the 3rd number. Now you want to open up a browser and enter in your router's IP address in the address bar (without http or www) and hit Enter. A username and password screen will come up. If you don't know the password or don't remember setting one, the username is usually "admin" for most companies, and the password can be either "admin", or "default", or "password", or even nothing. In the router settings, you want to find the page or settings for "Port Forwarding". The port range will be from 5900 to 5900 using TCP protocol, and the IP address to forward to is the IP address you entered for your computer earlier. For name, you can just put "VNC". Make sure you save the settings before your leave your router's setup page. The last thing you have to do on this computer is go to www.whatismyip.com and record the external IP address that you see. 4) Now comes the magic part. Go to another computer that has access to the internet or even another computer on your network and install the viewer you downloaded earlier. Run the viewer, and enter the remote computer's IP address and port in this format "x.x.x.x:port". For example, if the remote computer had an external IP of 24.51.9.207 and using port 5900 for VNC, you would type in 24.51.9.207 in the viewer of the control computer. From here on, you will be asked to enter a password and all goes well, you will have complete access to the other computer. If you are unable to connect, then you need to go back to the remote computer and either turn off your firewalls or OPEN port 5900. It is up to your responsibility to learn how to use your own firewall program. If you don't have any firewall programs running and you are still blocked, you might want to check and make sure that Windows Firewall isn't blocking the signal. You can disable or open up port 5900 in the windows firewall by going back to the Local Area Connection properties in the Step 2 and clicking on the Advanced tab where you can find the Windows Firewall settings. NOTE: not all all versions of Windows comes with a built-in firewall. Once again, congrats on setting up your computers for remote access and feel free to duplicate these steps until you have all computers everywhere at your fingertips! Do remember that if you have multiple computers on one network, you might configure all of them to use DIFFERENT PORTS for VNC. Play around with this and you will get the hang of it after a while. Goodluck and have fun!
All help on the site is encouraged. Send to
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
We're looking for technical writers for the site. Anybody who thinks they can help us are welcome. Feel free to support the site and share this site with your family, friends, and colleagues.
 |
