Accessing home pc over the web / VPN

Hi everyone

I am interested in accessing my home pc over the internet. I have a plusnet
broadband account, static ip address ,safe come modem attached to a buffalo
airstation router.

When I enter the static ip address in to a web browser I can get to log on
to the modem. I there for assume that I need to tell the modem to "talk to
the router" and the router to "talk" to the PC. I am lost at the number of
setting on the modem and how to achieve this.

Anyone know what I need to do next or can recommend a simple and easy to
follow web site.

Many thanks

Adam

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 08:58:42 +0100, "Dylan30" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi everyone
>
>I am interested in accessing my home pc over the internet. I have a plusnet
>broadband account, static ip address ,safe come modem attached to a buffalo
>airstation router.

>Anyone know what I need to do next or can recommend a simple and easy to
>follow web site.

I've done this quite successfully with a friend via a broadband
connection. My router has a built in VPN server.

Does your router have a built in VPN server? If not then you will have
to set up a server account via your operating system and likewise a
VPN connection via the remote computer.

Relatively straighforward using the connection wizard in XP, what
operating system have you got.

Geoff Lane

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 08:58:42 +0100, "Dylan30" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I am interested in accessing my home pc over the internet. I have a plusnet
>broadband account, static ip address ,safe come modem attached to a buffalo
>airstation router.
>
>When I enter the static ip address in to a web browser I can get to log on
>to the modem. I there for assume that I need to tell the modem to "talk to
>the router" and the router to "talk" to the PC. I am lost at the number of
>setting on the modem and how to achieve this.

This is usually listed under PORT FORWARDING or VIRTUAL SERVERS. I
have a Safecom router and it is listed under VIRTUAL SERVER.

What you have to do is tell the modem/router to forward all external
requests for a particular port to your computer, instead of sticking
at the modem.

First you need to know which ports you want to have forwarded. I
recommend using VNC because this gives you full desktop control and
has basic password security. However, it isn't encrypted so it isn't
really, really secure. Some people prefer to use FTP, which just gives
access to files only but isn't any more secure than VNC. For decent
security you'll need to use SSH and that's way too complicated to talk
about here.

You can get a VNC server program free from:
www.realvnc.com
www.tightvnc.com

For VNC, the port you need to forward is 5900. For FTP it is ports 20
and 21. Obviously you must be running a VNC Server or FTP Server
program first!

Imagine:
* Your home computer is on 192.168.0.2
* Your router/modem is on 192.168.0.1 internally and 64.100.200.123
externally.

So you want to set the router/modem to forward port 5900 to
192.168.0.2 .

>Anyone know what I need to do next or can recommend a simple and easy to
>follow web site.

Port forwarding can open up huge security problems so this isn't a
"simple" topic, sorry. But if you search around for "port forwarding
firewall router" this should get you started.

If you start doing important things like moving financial data about,
you really should use SSH or a VPN to encrypt stuff.


--
Andrew Oakley andrew/atsymbol/aoakley/stop/com

Dylan30 wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> I am interested in accessing my home pc over the internet. I have a plusnet
> broadband account, static ip address ,safe come modem attached to a buffalo
> airstation router.
>
> When I enter the static ip address in to a web browser I can get to log on
> to the modem. I there for assume that I need to tell the modem to "talk to
> the router" and the router to "talk" to the PC. I am lost at the number of
> setting on the modem and how to achieve this.
>
> Anyone know what I need to do next or can recommend a simple and easy to
> follow web site.

As you mention entering the IP address into a browser, is that what you
want to do, i.e. access Web pages on your home machine from a remote
site? Or do you want to see the home machines desktop from another system?

For Web pages you'd have to be running a Web server on your home PC.

For remote access to the desktop, as has been mentioned, you can use
VNC. Alternatively, in Windows XP Pro there is a feature called Remote
Desktop which does much the same thing.

VNC is not a secure thing though, so you might need to run it though
some other kind of 'transport'. One option is Zeebeedee. I've done this
successfully, but it is a little fiddly to configure.

http://www.winton.org.uk/zebedee/

I don't understand the bit about entering the static IP address and
logging on to the modem. Do you mean you see the modems configuration
screens from outside?

Normally the modem just does 'talk' to the router. It's function is to
pass through packets to the router or whatever else is connected to it's
ethernet port. The router would need to be configured to pass through
certain ports, depending on what you want to do, to the internal
network. Normally a router would reject incoming packets unless they are
sent in response to an outgoing transmission initially.

I'm not sure there is a simple, easy to follow web site for this. I'd
like to read it if there is one. A bit more reading is needed I think.