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You’re on the road, it’s the night before your big presentation. That’s when you realize that the presentation your business’s future depends on is sitting on your Mac at home, hundreds of miles away. With a little forethought and preparation, this wouldn’t be a problem. more
Remotely access your Mac
#2
sparky67 
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Posted 02 September 2006 - 11:25 PM
It's called "Remotely Access Your Mac" but since it doesn't discuss much about how to do this, it should have been called "Setting Up Dynamic DNS" as that's 90% of it anyway.
I just read this in the magazine so I decided to try it out when I discovered this so called "how-to" article really leaves out most of the critical "how-to" details. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Understanding and setting up Dynamic DNS is very simple thanks the ease of use found at DynDNS.org. So easy that any monkey equipped with a web browser can nail this DynDNS setup in a couple minutes.
I've been using FTP clients for years so that part too is easy when you know domain/login/password/path to files. Again I can easily connect to FTP servers in a couple minutes once I know these login details.
Here is where I'm stuck and where I think this article should have focused:
I have a LAN at home behind a firewall router. Am I the only one??
I think most readers interested in connecting remotely would have a computer connected online 24/7. Therefore you can reasonably expect they would have some kind of SOHO LAN behind a firewall router. I have several Macs all with their own static IP addresses such as 192.168.1.2 and so on. Why spend such a huge portion of the text instructing the simplest part (getting a dynamic DNS), then spend so little on logging in remotely all the while stopping completely short of the LAN on other side of the router?
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
So I really would have appreciated some more directions as to how to specifically access certain machines behind my router. Once setup, can this be tested behind the router or do I have to go in front of the router on an external network to try my settings?
I also know enough to know that I need to open up some ports. Anyway, I opened up ports 20 through 22 for FTP and SFTP to pass through.
If I'm logging in with a FTP client then why am I supposed to open ports 427 & 548 for Personal File Sharing? Are these also required for FTP? If not, then how do I remotely connect using Personal File Sharing? Is this the same as Personal File Sharing when I'm home on my LAN?
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
These are only some of the tiny little missing details that are critical to sucessfully setting up such a scheme. As a subscriber to your magazine I expect a higher quality of content in the "How-To" articles instead of this misleading and miss-titled fluff piece.
Thank-you in advance to anyone that can educate me further than this article.
I just read this in the magazine so I decided to try it out when I discovered this so called "how-to" article really leaves out most of the critical "how-to" details. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
Understanding and setting up Dynamic DNS is very simple thanks the ease of use found at DynDNS.org. So easy that any monkey equipped with a web browser can nail this DynDNS setup in a couple minutes.
I've been using FTP clients for years so that part too is easy when you know domain/login/password/path to files. Again I can easily connect to FTP servers in a couple minutes once I know these login details.
Here is where I'm stuck and where I think this article should have focused:
I have a LAN at home behind a firewall router. Am I the only one??
I think most readers interested in connecting remotely would have a computer connected online 24/7. Therefore you can reasonably expect they would have some kind of SOHO LAN behind a firewall router. I have several Macs all with their own static IP addresses such as 192.168.1.2 and so on. Why spend such a huge portion of the text instructing the simplest part (getting a dynamic DNS), then spend so little on logging in remotely all the while stopping completely short of the LAN on other side of the router?
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
So I really would have appreciated some more directions as to how to specifically access certain machines behind my router. Once setup, can this be tested behind the router or do I have to go in front of the router on an external network to try my settings?
I also know enough to know that I need to open up some ports. Anyway, I opened up ports 20 through 22 for FTP and SFTP to pass through.
If I'm logging in with a FTP client then why am I supposed to open ports 427 & 548 for Personal File Sharing? Are these also required for FTP? If not, then how do I remotely connect using Personal File Sharing? Is this the same as Personal File Sharing when I'm home on my LAN?
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
These are only some of the tiny little missing details that are critical to sucessfully setting up such a scheme. As a subscriber to your magazine I expect a higher quality of content in the "How-To" articles instead of this misleading and miss-titled fluff piece.
Thank-you in advance to anyone that can educate me further than this article.
#3
chuckla
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Posted 07 September 2006 - 09:14 AM
Fine as far as it went- making a technical subject understandable for the non-technical or semi-technical reader- but a very large number of those readers are, like I am, running an Airport or other wireless network behind the cable/dsl modem. We need the next step- how to configure things to get to a specific machine behind the router!
#4
sparky67
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Posted 26 September 2006 - 06:09 PM
Quote:
... but a very large number of those readers are, like I am, running an Airport or other wireless network behind the cable/dsl modem. We need the next step- how to configure things to get to a specific machine behind the router!
... but a very large number of those readers are, like I am, running an Airport or other wireless network behind the cable/dsl modem. We need the next step- how to configure things to get to a specific machine behind the router!
Thank-you... I knew I wasn't alone! But sadly, chuckla, I don't think anyone here is listening.
I may have to cancel my subscription since these types of fluff pieces are useless to me.
#5
jdb8167
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Posted 26 September 2006 - 07:20 PM
Quote:
We need the next step- how to configure things to get to a specific machine behind the router!
It is pretty difficult to explain this step because the setup is different for different routers. I'm not excusing the lack of detail in the article but there is no one solution that can be used.We need the next step- how to configure things to get to a specific machine behind the router!
Look up inbound port mapping in the instructions that came with the router. You will also need a static IP for the target machine. This is done differently for different routers as well. Some routers can assign an IP for all ports in one setting so that you don't need to know which port to map. Other routers may be able to assign port mapping based on the target machines MAC address so that you can use dynamic IPs.
It is a complex subject.
#6
spimster
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Posted 28 September 2006 - 05:00 PM
it may indeed be somewhat complex (behind a router) but I also am simply amazed that this is not even touched upon in a "this would be covered by another article" type of sentence .. not even a mention of this common setup.
I was all jazzed to do this and immediately went to the Dynamic DNS site and set up mine.
Then it also occurred to me .. bothering me in the back of my pointy head .. "but, my machine's IP is assigned by my router! ... oh noes!"
It will be an interesting thing to try nonetheless ... as long as I don't break anything (physically .. when I can't get it to work).
I was all jazzed to do this and immediately went to the Dynamic DNS site and set up mine.
Then it also occurred to me .. bothering me in the back of my pointy head .. "but, my machine's IP is assigned by my router! ... oh noes!"
It will be an interesting thing to try nonetheless ... as long as I don't break anything (physically .. when I can't get it to work).
#7
themacjedi
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Posted 28 September 2006 - 06:30 PM
InsightBB users don't attempt the FTP server. InsightBB will ban you and you will lose your internet. The only way can use FTP this way is if you have a business account and most of us don't. When I setup my server on FTP to remotely connect they turned my account off and I had to call and wait 12 hours to get it back on. They said if it happens 3 times they close your account for good.
#8
neilmunn
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Posted 29 September 2006 - 06:51 AM
I read with interest this article, mainly because I've been remotely accessing my Mac for the past year, and I have at least 6 more steps.
The instructions and very nice video, that I followed are at:
http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/
Highly recommended!
Neil Munn
fruity websites
The instructions and very nice video, that I followed are at:
http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/
Highly recommended!
Neil Munn
fruity websites
#9
sparky67
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Posted 02 October 2006 - 03:52 PM
Quote:
I read with interest this article, mainly because I've been remotely accessing my Mac for the past year, and I have at least 6 more steps.
The instructions and very nice video, that I followed are at:
http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/
Highly recommended!
Neil Munn
fruity websites
I read with interest this article, mainly because I've been remotely accessing my Mac for the past year, and I have at least 6 more steps.
The instructions and very nice video, that I followed are at:
http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/
Highly recommended!
Neil Munn
fruity websites
Thanks for the link... I'll check that out.
My complaint in addition to the poorly written article is that it has nearly nothing to do with the title. Dynamic DNS is the main topic covered and that should have been the headline.
Remote access is more complicated but I think in a couple pages, they could have a paragraph briefly explaining the various scenarios with a reference to additional information online. With all the great networking built into Mac OS X, you'd think one could easily connect to any machine behind a firewall. Just mention the most common ways and the requirements. Without writing a textbook, they could point the readers towards solutions instead of making things more complicated.
Everything is so much simpler with a single machine behind the router/firewall. The article could have focused on the various workarounds required when you have several machines on the LAN.
Remote Desktop - how to access more than one machine behind a router. (Can't do it without VPN, I'm told)
VPN - What is it and is this what people typically use?
Port Mapping - one paragraph explaining what it is. In my router only one IP address can be assigned to a port. What's the workaround for several machines? How about ARD when only certain ports can be used? Workarounds? Reference links?
Setting a static IP address at each machine instead of DCHP - you need to also specify DNS servers even though router has DNS server info.
Port Mapping - just the basic concepts in a paragraph and what to do when only one port is allowed to be mapped to one IP address. Do you need special routers for this?
FTP - the difference between SFTP and FTP. Mention that you can't PUT or DELETE with the Mac's built-in FTP. You need a third party FTP solution.
That's only what I could think of, but a brief paragraph or two on each would have pointed me in the right direction. The article as written did nothing but point me to a great free service at DynDNS. Two pages wasted explaining something that was easy enough to figure out on my own.
#10
midtoad
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Posted 02 October 2006 - 04:04 PM
Others have already pointed out the failings of the article, so we'll skip over that and go right to desktop access.
Like a couple of other readers, I've got a home network behind a firewall/router. I get to my desktop using VNC (using any VNC client like UltraVNC for Windows or Chicken of the VNC for the Mac). I run OSXVnc server on the Mac, ensuring that it's set up to restart when I reboot.
To get access to your desktop using VNC, you need to set up port forwarding in the router's web interface. Normally VNC uses port 5900, so you'd forward that port from your router to the internal IP address of your Mac (naturally this will be easier if you set up your Mac with a fixed IP address instead of using DHCP to assign an IP). Now, when you try to connect using VNC to your DynDns-assigned domain name, e.g. mydomain.homeip.org, your router will pass the request to your Mac.
One thing about VNC access to your Mac desktop; it's slow and often ugly, since the no. of colours will be likely reduced. Turn off your desktop backgrounds if you're going to do it a lot. (Windows users have it a lot better since UltraVNC server runs a special mirror driver that dramatically speeds performance).
Like a couple of other readers, I've got a home network behind a firewall/router. I get to my desktop using VNC (using any VNC client like UltraVNC for Windows or Chicken of the VNC for the Mac). I run OSXVnc server on the Mac, ensuring that it's set up to restart when I reboot.
To get access to your desktop using VNC, you need to set up port forwarding in the router's web interface. Normally VNC uses port 5900, so you'd forward that port from your router to the internal IP address of your Mac (naturally this will be easier if you set up your Mac with a fixed IP address instead of using DHCP to assign an IP). Now, when you try to connect using VNC to your DynDns-assigned domain name, e.g. mydomain.homeip.org, your router will pass the request to your Mac.
One thing about VNC access to your Mac desktop; it's slow and often ugly, since the no. of colours will be likely reduced. Turn off your desktop backgrounds if you're going to do it a lot. (Windows users have it a lot better since UltraVNC server runs a special mirror driver that dramatically speeds performance).
#11
sparky67
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Posted 02 October 2006 - 04:33 PM
Quote:
I read with interest this article, mainly because I've been remotely accessing my Mac for the past year, and I have at least 6 more steps.
The instructions and very nice video, that I followed are at:
http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/
Highly recommended!
Neil Munn
fruity websites
I read with interest this article, mainly because I've been remotely accessing my Mac for the past year, and I have at least 6 more steps.
The instructions and very nice video, that I followed are at:
http://howto.diveintomark.org/remote-mac/
Highly recommended!
Neil Munn
fruity websites
I watched this video. It's an excellent video with great step by step detail. No step is left out.
However, this video has one big problem in common with the article. No mention of how to access different machines behind the router. It shows you how to map port 22 through to a single IP address and nothing about additional machines or IPs behind the router/firewall.
Also, since I have Apple Remote Desktop and can already remotely control ONE machine behind my router/firewall, the video is no further help. I have the required ports mapped to that machine's IP but I'd like to access ALL the machines behind my router/firewall with ARD and so far it seems this is not possible.
ARD needs several specific ports mapped. In my NetGear router, you can only map a specific port or port range to a SINGLE IP address. You cannot duplicate any ports to any other IPs. Since it seems that ARD does not allow any other ports, you can't access any other IPs behind the router.
No help at Apple.com and one person mentioned using VPN to access the entire LAN via ARD. This I'd like to see.... so far I can't seem to get VPN working at all.
How the heck does an IT professional use ARD to access several Macs on a LAN behind a router/firewall? Can anyone explain this?
#12
sparky67
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Posted 02 October 2006 - 04:36 PM
Quote:
Others have already pointed out the failings of the article, so we'll skip over that and go right to desktop access.
Like a couple of other readers, I've got a home network behind a firewall/router. I get to my desktop using VNC (using any VNC client like UltraVNC for Windows or Chicken of the VNC for the Mac). I run OSXVnc server on the Mac, ensuring that it's set up to restart when I reboot.
To get access to your desktop using VNC, you need to set up port forwarding in the router's web interface. Normally VNC uses port 5900, so you'd forward that port from your router to the internal IP address of your Mac (naturally this will be easier if you set up your Mac with a fixed IP address instead of using DHCP to assign an IP). Now, when you try to connect using VNC to your DynDns-assigned domain name, e.g. mydomain.homeip.org, your router will pass the request to your Mac.
One thing about VNC access to your Mac desktop; it's slow and often ugly, since the no. of colours will be likely reduced. Turn off your desktop backgrounds if you're going to do it a lot. (Windows users have it a lot better since UltraVNC server runs a special mirror driver that dramatically speeds performance).
Others have already pointed out the failings of the article, so we'll skip over that and go right to desktop access.
Like a couple of other readers, I've got a home network behind a firewall/router. I get to my desktop using VNC (using any VNC client like UltraVNC for Windows or Chicken of the VNC for the Mac). I run OSXVnc server on the Mac, ensuring that it's set up to restart when I reboot.
To get access to your desktop using VNC, you need to set up port forwarding in the router's web interface. Normally VNC uses port 5900, so you'd forward that port from your router to the internal IP address of your Mac (naturally this will be easier if you set up your Mac with a fixed IP address instead of using DHCP to assign an IP). Now, when you try to connect using VNC to your DynDns-assigned domain name, e.g. mydomain.homeip.org, your router will pass the request to your Mac.
One thing about VNC access to your Mac desktop; it's slow and often ugly, since the no. of colours will be likely reduced. Turn off your desktop backgrounds if you're going to do it a lot. (Windows users have it a lot better since UltraVNC server runs a special mirror driver that dramatically speeds performance).
Dynamic DNS and port forwarding are already pretty clear but what about the root of my original complaint? Again- how to access multiple machines behind the router?
#13
midtoad
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Posted 02 October 2006 - 05:43 PM
Quote:
how to access multiple machines behind the router?
how to access multiple machines behind the router?
I only connect to my home network using VNC, not ARD, since I don't use a Mac at work. BUT, the process might be the same and you might try the following.
I only need to forward ports to one machine in my LAN, which is my Mac. Once connected to the Mac with VNC, I then can VNC into other machines on my home network without having to set up additional port forwarding in the router. You may be able to use ARD from the Mac that you VNC'ed into in order to reach other machines on your network.
HTH,
S
#14
sparky67
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Posted 02 October 2006 - 07:57 PM
Quote:
I only connect to my home network using VNC, not ARD, since I don't use a Mac at work. BUT, the process might be the same and you might try the following.
I only need to forward ports to one machine in my LAN, which is my Mac. Once connected to the Mac with VNC, I then can VNC into other machines on my home network without having to set up additional port forwarding in the router. You may be able to use ARD from the Mac that you VNC'ed into in order to reach other machines on your network.
HTH,
S
Quote:
how to access multiple machines behind the router?
how to access multiple machines behind the router?
I only connect to my home network using VNC, not ARD, since I don't use a Mac at work. BUT, the process might be the same and you might try the following.
I only need to forward ports to one machine in my LAN, which is my Mac. Once connected to the Mac with VNC, I then can VNC into other machines on my home network without having to set up additional port forwarding in the router. You may be able to use ARD from the Mac that you VNC'ed into in order to reach other machines on your network.
HTH,
S
I really appreciate your "creative" approach because you're trying to help. Yes, from a technical standpoint, you can use ARD from within ARD to access more machines. Maybe someone else wants to do this but to be frank, for me it's too silly to even consider. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
I've got a 13.3" laptop at 1280 pixels wide remote controlling a 21" dual desktop at 1792 pixels and 1280 pixels wide side by side. That's difficult enough. Now open up ARD inside the remote machine and control yet another Mac at 1280 pixels wide.
Thinking you'd be productive with this whole scenario is just pure fantasy -
1. It's a little slow on the 100 MBps Ethernet so it would be WAY too slow going through my 3.0 MBps DSL on top of the Ethernet.
2. Not to mention the MICROSCOPIC size of the screen within a screen within a screen. The icons look like dots and the text is not legible. Heck you can barely see the cursor.
On a fun side note: You can set up two Macs with ARD to log into each other at the same time. You get that infinite window effect like two mirrors facing each other. Then try controlling your main machine from within the ARD window inside the ARD window on the remote machine. It's way freaky, man. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
Seriously, I really would rather learn the proper way to network into different machines on the LAN. VPN is supposed to work but I'm not too sure how to set that up or if the VPN into ARD solution is even correct.
