Preface

Remote connection is one of those things, like high speed Internet, when, once you have it, you can never go back. Most people never bother to set it up either because they do not [think they] need it, think solutions cost too much or believe it is too hard to set up on their own. If you fall into the one of these groups, I am going to change your mind.

In this guide, I am going to cover setting up remote connection on all the major operating systems. Once you are done reading this guide, you should not only have remote connection working on your system, but also know everything you need to know about what is going on behind the scenes.

Contents

1. How It Works


2. Common Remote Connection Methods


3. Set Up
   
   
   
   • Windows
   
   
   • Linux
   
   
   • Mac OSX


4. Port Forwarding


5. Connecting Remotely


6. External IP’s, Domains and DNS


7. Advanced Information and Configuration

How Remote Connection Works

A good starting point for this guide is explaining what remote connection is and how it works. Remote connection in this context, simply put, is connecting to and controlling one computer from another computer. While the alternate methods accomplish this differently, the end result is basically the same.

In this guide I will be discussing how you can control your computer’s desktop from another computer. This works by setting up a your computer as a remote connection server which sends a constant series of screenshots to a connected client. The remote connection server does the following:

1. Captures its own screen as an image.


2. Compresses each image (into a JPG or something similar).


3. Sends the image to the connected client.


4. Repeats this cycle several times per second.

To set your expectations correctly, this is ideal for running your programs, getting access to your files or giving another user technical support from anywhere. It is not ideal for gaming because you most likely will only get a few frames per second of compressed images.

Common Remote Connection Methods

Commercial Options

While the focus of this article is not the commercial options, it is worth mentioning these for people who are looking for an “out of the box” solution. Here is a [very] brief overview of some the popular options. You can get all the details from the respective products’ website.

The benefits to using a commercial product are the ease of setup, user friendly interface, advanced options and a technical support phone number. Conversely, the drawback is, of course, the cost. Personally, I would rather spend 15-30 minutes configuring my environment and never have to pay a dime, because regardless of your choice, once it is setup it just works.

Free Options

Most likely, the free alternatives are the reason you are reading. The scope of this article is strictly to set up remote connection and control of your computer. As a result the free options discussed will not be as fully featured as the commercial products above, however you can always set up additional services on your computer (such as an FTP server) to handle most of the advanced functionality the above offer.

Here are the methods I will discuss in this article:

• Virtual Network Computing (VNC)
  The most common remote connection method. Gives you “true” remote control of your computer (i.e. move the mouse remotely, someone sitting at your computer can watch it move). Most commercial options are essentially VNC on steroids.
  I will show you how to set up VNC on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX


• Terminal Services (TS)
  Arguably the slickest of all free remote control. Built into Windows Servers and XP (Professional only) it allows you to log in remotely and control your Windows computer and has nice features such as local disk and printer connection.
  I will show you how to set up TS on Windows XP Professional.

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