On 14 Aug 2009 at 15:07, [email protected] wrote:
I'm interested in what the list recommends as a remote control program to
use, to provide support in a home environment (i.e., if I want to connect
to my friend's PC, and see exactly what's going, and so that she can
watch, observe,learn .. and then totally forget, until the next time she
calls me to connect in and fix it ...)
For home use, I would look into UltraVNC SingleClick, which is totally free.
It's what I use to support my home-user clients. You just need to tweak
*_your_* firewall to forward one port -- no config changes at the remote end.
Works like a champ as long as their AV doesn't block VNC (some AV packages have
to be told that VNC is OK).
Single Click - UltraVNC
http://www.uvnc.com/addons/singleclick.html
LogMeIn Free? the old standby, pcAnywhere? (do they even still make that?)
Something else?
Disadvantage of LogMeIn Free and GoToAssist Free is the total lack of file
transfer capabilities, which may or may not affect you. You have to figure
some other way of getting files to the troubled system (not a big deal, use
YouSendIt.com and the like). Also, you log in to the remote system from a page
on the LogMeIn or GoToAssist servers, so they could sniff the remote desktop's
login and password info.
LogMeIn Hamachi might be something worth looking into, free only for home use:
LogMeIn Hamachi - Licensing
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/licensing.asp
"If you are using Hamachi for your own, non-commercial use, it's 100%
free."
------- Included Stuff Follows -------
LogMeIn - How Hamachi Works
Hamachi is a UDP-based virtual private networking system. Its peers are
helped by a third node called a mediation server to locate each other and
to bootstrap the connection between them. The connection itself is direct
and, once established, no traffic flows through our servers.
Hamachi is not just truly peer-to-peer; it is verifiably secure peer-to-
peer.
Hamachi is able to successfully mediate p2p connections in roughly 95% of
all cases. This includes peers residing behind various firewalls or
broadband routers (aka NAT devices).
--------- Included Stuff Ends ---------
More here with links:
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/howitworks.asp
Once you have a Hamachi link up and running, you use some flavour of VNC to do
remote control.
I used to use Hamachi before they got bought by LogMeIn and changed their
licensing from "free for everyone" to "free for non-commercial use".
Be warned there appears to be something flaky with their security certificate
right now:
------- Included Stuff Follows -------
wget https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/Hamachi_
Getting_Started_Guide.pdf
--14:51:01--
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/Hamachi_Getting_Starte
d_Guide.pdf
=> `Hamachi_Getting_Started_Guide.pdf'
Resolving secure.logmein.com... 74.201.74.193
Connecting to secure.logmein.com|74.201.74.193|:443... connected.
ERROR: Certificate verification error for secure.logmein.com: unable to get
local issuer certificate
To connect to secure.logmein.com insecurely, use `--no-check-certificate'.
Unable to establish SSL connection.
--------- Included Stuff Ends ---------
Last but not least, here's something for the truly geeky:
Remote Desktop and SSH for the home user
http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/Ssh/RemoteDesktopSSH.html
--
Angus Scott-Fleming
GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona
1-520-290-5038
+-----------------------------------+
