Remote VNC & Dynamic DNS
My buddy Drama asked me last night while drunk & bowling how to install a remote desktop on his daddys puter, so he doesn't have to go there or suffer through painful family phone support. I didn't find any good guides immedatelly, so I wrote him this as an e-mail. Maybe 2 other people in the world will find it as useful, so it gets BLAGGED.
The software I use is TightVNC. Very useful. Basically here are the steps:
1. install tightvnc server & viewer (for testing) on your dads puter
2. open a port you can remember in the router pointing to that computer's ip (I use something like 54545 or 54000 for mine)
3. run the tightvnc server, set a GOOD password, set it to start by default with the computer.
4. test it a couple of times with the "allow loopback connections" option selected. connect to it using the tight VNC viewer and the IP of your dad's house (www.whatismyip.com) followed by the port.
- it'll do a fun recursion thingy here if all is well!
5. go home
6. drink a beer
7. setup TightVNC viewer on your puter
8. connect to your daddy's IP and port, view that shinznat.
Now, to avoid having to ask him to give you his IP whenever you want to connect, set up a service called "Dynamic DNS." Here's how to go about setting it up:
1. setup a free account at a place like dyndns.com.
2. subscribe to the free "Dynamic DNS service." It's hidden pretty well in dyndns, but you'll find it, I believe in you!
3. navigate to the DDNS service on your router. it's in Setup > DDNS tab for DD-WRT firmware
4. set it up with the account information provided to you by dyndns. I used h.dontexist.com because it makes me laugh.
5. set the update intreval to something sensible, every 10 days is fine for most ISPs, some cable companies are much quicker on their IP rotation and should be set to 1-3 days.
6. ping the connection to a port you know is open on the router. You should see it resolve to your dad's IP
- @engelhaft ~ $ ping h.dontexist.com
- 64 bytes from adsl-76-250-254-231.dsl.tpkaks.sbcglobal.net (76.250.254.231): icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.559 ms
7. fire up TightVNC, throw in your dynamic address (h.dontexist.com) and port, connect, do whatever the hell it was you wanted to do.
8. fap
^_^