Remote access to work computer?

[Mr Downtown]

Thanx to M A V I C's sig, I see that my work machine's IP address is always the same. Does that mean I could log in from my laptop while on the road to retrieve files? Where would I find step-by-step instructions? (Tiger on both machines).

[timg]

Is your work machine actually tied to the internet directly? or it behind a router?

[Joey Cupcakes]

Assuming your work's broadband signal is coming from a router, you would need is for your IT dept. to open the right port(s) for whatever software you'd want to use (which could be control software like Timbuktu or VNC, or an ftp or afp networking port) and then forward that port using NAT to your machine's local IP address.

Then the external IP address you're seeing would be what you'd direct your home/remote machine to.

[Mr Downtown]

Well, the IT department is me :-) That's why I was hoping to find step-by-step instructions somewhere.

There's something called a Belkin Cable/DSL router that our DSL provider sent us, and then we have a SkyLine Net 1008 switch that links our computers together.

[Paul F.]

You need access to the settings of that Belkin router..
From there, you set up a "pinhole".

What the pinhole does is take incoming traffic to the "public" IP address (the one in Mavics SIG), and "route" it to a specific computer on your network (that is, yours).
ALso part of the pinhole is what "port" is open. File sharing, Filemaker pro, chat software, etc etc etc, all use different "ports".
Only open the ones you NEED, and do NOT forget to set proper and secure passwords on your computer in the User Account!

Hope this helps!

[Seacrest]

I hate to say this, but if you are the "IT" department, and you're asking these very basic questions, it's probably a clue that this is maybe not the kind of risk you should be taking?

[Paul F.]

Seacrest;

Sounded to me like he was being facetious... being it's his HOME NETWORK and all...
I'm MY own IT dept at home too... as you are at yours... etc.

[cbelt3]

noip.com - your dsl provider can switch your ip address on you in a heartbeat. They also prolly block most ports so you can't host or remote login.

[davemchine]

It sounds like he has a computer at home that is designated for "work." If so you have two options:

1) configure your router to allow apple file sharing request to be sent from your router to your "work" computer. This will get you to your files but nothing else. It does open a security risk but alot of people do it.

2) upgrade your router to something that includes a vpn server. I don't have alot of experience in this area for home users. At work I started with a snapgear router (pretty affordable) that could do ipsec tunnels or pptp vpn's. I can say for certain that the pptp + snapgear+osx works just fine.

Now I have a sonicwall (much more expensive) and I'll be buying a piece of software tomorrow to allow me to establish ipsec connections to it. http://www.equinux.com/us/products/vpntr...index.html

If you are pretty savy you can probably do something on your own but if you aren't you might want to call around and have a computer shop come and install it for you.

Dave

[jdc]

find the instructions to your router, open a port

instal BOSCOs screen share on every mac you want to control and leave it on

access through boscos is very simple, search the forum for my posts on it

oh, and its free.