[X4U] Remote control options

[Neil Laubenthal]

VNC. There are servers and clients for just about every operating  
system known to man.

The only drawback is that it is not encrypted like Timbuktu  
is . . .there is one version that includes SSL encryption but it's  
not free. It's from RealVNC . . .they have both free unencrypted and  
pay encrypted versions.

If you're comfortable with establishing SSH tunnels on your own with  
terminal . . .then you can do it for free. Run a VNC server on the  
iMac at home, set your home firewall to port forward SSH traffic to  
this machine. Set up an encrypted tunnel on your laptop/work machine  
so that some random local port gets forwarded to the right port on  
the iMac at home . . .then simply VNC to the correct port on the  
local machine.

Chicken of the VNC is the most popular Mac client.

The terminal command to issue on your laptop/work machine/whatever is  
similar to:

ssh -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5900 IP_at_your_house

where IP_at_your_house is the WAN IP you get from your cable/dsl/FIOS/ 
whatever provider.

If you have a static IP then you're golden . . .if you do not have a  
static IP then you can use DynDNS.org to manage the DNS entries for a  
domain you setup and the DynDNS client built into most current  
firewalls or the one you can get for MacOS X to update DynDNS's DNS  
servers. In that case you would replace the IP above with the domain  
name.

Set up the home iMac to listen for VNC connections. Under Tiger you  
can make sure that Apple Remote Desktop Client is installed . . .then  
enable it in Sharing pref pane and set the access privs so that VNC  
clients can connect. The problem with this is that I never figured  
out how to make it work encrypted . . .so ended up using a freeware  
VNC server (OSXVNC) instead.

Finally, ensure that your firewall port forwards the right port to  
your iMac.

Then . . .

1. establish the tunnel from your laptop/work Mac.
2. VNC to the local port on the laptop/work Mac.
3. The local port gets port forwarded to your firewall via SSH, then  
forwarded to the waiting iMac VNC server and voila, you're in.

You can also do this from a WIndows machine . . .or a Solaris machine  
or whatever.

I found a site on the web that included a QT movie about how to do  
this from a Windows box and automate  
everything . . .howto.diveintomark.org. While this movie is Windows  
specific . . .he's a Mac guy and it includes how to make it work from  
a Mac as well.

I ended up making a .term document that issues the right command to  
establish the tunnel . . .a simple double click and it is  
setup . . .then VNC to local port and it works.


On Jan 15, 2007, at 13:25, KJS wrote:

>
> Hi, all.
>
> I have a need to access and control an iMac at home (to  
> occasionally restart
> an errant application). I'm evaluating Timbuktu Pro, and it does  
> what I
> want, albeit slowly. It's a bit pricey for my simple need, though.  
> Are there
> other options - shareware, open source, etc.?
>
> Thanks,
> Jerry
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> X4U mailing list
> X4U at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
> http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/x4u
>
> Listmom is trying to clean out his closets! Vintage Mac and random  
> stuff:
>          http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZmacguy1984