Remote control of computers over the internet

jrsweger · October 26th, 2004, 06:07 AM

I'm trying to remote control some computers over the internet using Symantec's "pcAnywhere" software. I'm not up on all the networking stuff but thought that I'd be able to figure it all out. My problem is I can't seem to be able to ping my remote's IP address (that I got from "Whatsmyip.com") from my home. I get similar results when I try to ping my home IP address from work, usually request timed out and destination net unreachable. I'm obviously missing something. Anyone have any ideas? Can anyone recommend a good book to read to learn more about networking, IP addressing, firewalls, etc?

muno · October 26th, 2004, 06:21 AM

Your firewall probably blocks icmp traffic (pings get dropped), in modern internet, pings are pretty useless.

Your computer probably works even though it doesn't respond, and if you have pcanywhere running and a hole opened in the firewall it will work.

muno · October 26th, 2004, 08:10 AM

Good point (though it probably doesn't because it's obtained from www.whatismyip.com), but IF you are a part of larger network and your computer has (ipconfig /all from command prompt) says something different than whatismyip.com you need to forward ports, too, from the computer/box doing routing.

jrsweger · October 26th, 2004, 08:53 AM

No, in this case, the remote (pcAnywhere calls it the host) is actually going to be my home IP since I'm using this as a test site. My remote eventually will be an hours drive from my home. My home IP as shown by www.whatismyip.com is 66.xx.x.xx. I am hooked up through cable and I run the output of the cable modem into a linksys router/wireless access point (wrt54g) in which I have 3 computers hooked up. My intent for now is to commandeer a friends computer close by to be the main and try to control one of my home computers. So, then of course my network does show (internally) 192.xx.xx.xx and I would assume that I will need to provide some sort of permission or open a port or something to allow me to actually gain access to the machine. Yes/no????

DrDave1958 · October 29th, 2004, 09:19 PM

Forget about the ping test.

First, forward the port in your router to the machine you want to connect to. e.g. If the target machine's IP is 192.168.1.2, then forward port (5632 I think) to that machines IP. You can verify which port you need to forward by looking in PCanywhere settings on that machine.

BTW: You can test this from home by connecting to the target machine with PCanywhere via the internet. Go to another machine and setup a connection and under settings>Network pc to control, put in your WAN IP (66.xx.x.xx).

When the port is forwarded properly, you will connect to the target machine.

It's really good to test this from home because you see if there are any conflicts such as a firewall.

-Dave-

jrsweger · October 29th, 2004, 10:55 PM

Dave, good idea! I will try that sometime tomorrow as time permits and will report back. And here I was going to go grab a friends PC to do that... So much simpler to do it here. Thanks.

James T · October 29th, 2004, 11:54 PM

If WinXP SP2 you need to create a rule in your firewall that permits 5631 AND 5632 as incoming packets, you can define this per application or per port, per application obviously providing more security. NOTE one port is UDP the other is TCP, you must get this right (I'm at the wrong pc to check at the moment) or it won't work. Start with simple pcAnywhere security, once you've got it working then up the security in pcAnywhere. You can do public key through this but aaargh.

jrsweger · November 1st, 2004, 10:57 AM

Here's the followup. It took some time for me to find the appropriate settings to forward the ports (had to get the right ones too) on my router but I can access the remote using the 66.xx.xx.xx IP address. My next big challenge will be to move the remote back to its original home, about an hour from me. I hope the DSL line there doesn't throw me any curves. Thanks for all the help so far.

jrsweger · November 15th, 2004, 04:20 AM

Finally had a chance to borrow a friends computer and tested my ability to access remotely. Had success getting in and was able to control the PC remotely. Note that both computers, host and remote, were on the same ISP (Road Runner). The next challenge will be to take the remote back to its original location and its DSL ISP and attempt connection there. To those familiar with DSL, should I expect anything different than what I have with RR?

DrDave1958 · November 15th, 2004, 08:42 PM

AFAIK there is no difference other than speed. (I use DSL)

On a side note, I've used PCAnywhere, VNC, and XP's remote desktop, and I prefer remote desktop (refresh is better).

-Dave-