[Andybikecrazy]

I installed the free version of real vnc on all the computers on my home network. It works great on my LAN and is very handy to be able to do something on a different computer when at my computer. However I have been unable to figure out how to make it work beyond my LAN. I want to be able to connect to my pc for another location over the internet, but it does not work. I think it has something to do with my IP address being an internal private address. What do I need to configure so I can connect to my computer from a computer outside my LAN. Thanks in advance for you help.

[Advertisements]

Hello,

You are on the right track. Your home network presents one external IP address to the world and this is the IP address that you will need to connect to with the computer outside the LAN. Now, once the outside computer is connecting to the IP address associated with your LAN, how does your internal computer know to connect? You will need to configure your firewall/router to forward the ports to the internal computer you want to connect with. The ports that are mentioned on the Real VNC site are 5900 and 5800. You will need to forward those to your internal computer. Let us know if you need any help with that step. I will try to summarize this below:

- Your network has some external IP address: let's call it zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz
- Your home computer has it's own personal IP address on your LAN: let's call it 192.168.0.yyy
- You will be running the VNC server on your home computer (with the 192.168.0.yyy address)
- You will be running the VNC client on the outside computer (doesn't matter what IP it has, just what IP it is trying to connect with) and you will have the client try to connect with the external IP zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz
- On your home network, you will need to forward the ports 5800 and 5900 to your home computer (so forward the ports to 192.168.0.yyy)
- Now when the external client tries to connect to the external ip zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz on ports 5800 and 5900, your router/firewall will say, "Ok, I should send this connection to the computer with the internal IP 192.168.0.yyy since that where the ports are forwarded".
- And now you should have a successful connection! You can connect to other computers on your internal network by forwarding a unique pair of ports to each computer using the same process as above.

Cheers,
Tom

I installed the free version of real vnc on all the computers on my home network. It works great on my LAN and is very handy to be able to do something on a different computer when at my computer. However I have been unable to figure out how to make it work beyond my LAN. I want to be able to connect to my pc for another location over the internet, but it does not work. I think it has something to do with my IP address being an internal private address. What do I need to configure so I can connect to my computer from a computer outside my LAN. Thanks in advance for you help.

[gust0208]

Hello,

You are on the right track. Your home network presents one external IP address to the world and this is the IP address that you will need to connect to with the computer outside the LAN. Now, once the outside computer is connecting to the IP address associated with your LAN, how does your internal computer know to connect? You will need to configure your firewall/router to forward the ports to the internal computer you want to connect with. The ports that are mentioned on the Real VNC site are 5900 and 5800. You will need to forward those to your internal computer. Let us know if you need any help with that step. I will try to summarize this below:

- Your network has some external IP address: let's call it zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz
- Your home computer has it's own personal IP address on your LAN: let's call it 192.168.0.yyy
- You will be running the VNC server on your home computer (with the 192.168.0.yyy address)
- You will be running the VNC client on the outside computer (doesn't matter what IP it has, just what IP it is trying to connect with) and you will have the client try to connect with the external IP zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz
- On your home network, you will need to forward the ports 5800 and 5900 to your home computer (so forward the ports to 192.168.0.yyy)
- Now when the external client tries to connect to the external ip zzz.zzz.zzz.zzz on ports 5800 and 5900, your router/firewall will say, "Ok, I should send this connection to the computer with the internal IP 192.168.0.yyy since that where the ports are forwarded".
- And now you should have a successful connection! You can connect to other computers on your internal network by forwarding a unique pair of ports to each computer using the same process as above.

Cheers,
Tom

I installed the free version of real vnc on all the computers on my home network. It works great on my LAN and is very handy to be able to do something on a different computer when at my computer. However I have been unable to figure out how to make it work beyond my LAN. I want to be able to connect to my pc for another location over the internet, but it does not work. I think it has something to do with my IP address being an internal private address. What do I need to configure so I can connect to my computer from a computer outside my LAN. Thanks in advance for you help.

[dsenette]

you may even be able to "daisy chain" your vnc connections once you're inside the lan...such as vnc to comp1 with vnc client on the computer you are sitting at, then vnc to comp2 from comp1 and 3 from comp2 and so on..though this will be slow

[Andybikecrazy]

thanks gust0208! I configured my router and it works!

[gust0208]

Hey, glad to hear!
I am going to be setting up a VNC client on my grandma's computer for the slickest remote fix-it jobs even seen by grand-childrenkind.

Cheers,
Tom

thanks gust0208! I configured my router and it works!

[Andybikecrazy]

I was talking to a friend and he told me there is a security concern with vnc and forwarding the ports required for vnc to work. He told me I should change it to a different port number to make it more secure. I tried, that but it messed up my internet connection and didn't seem to work. I am not sure if I was doing it right though. How can I make vnc more secure by forwarding to an uncommon port? thanks.

Edited by Andybikecrazy, 08 November 2005 - 11:20 AM.

[gust0208]

Hello,

The only security implications I can think of regarding using the default ports is that people could sniff/explore those ports first, but I don't think it is a large issue if you have a properly configured firewall. As for using different ports, I am not sure how it would affect your internet connection unless you forwarded a port used by a different program (example, port 80 is for http). What ports or port range were you trying to use? Also, you need to enter these changed ports in the VNC server so it knows where to listen.

Cheers,
Tom

I was talking to a friend and he told me there is a security concern with vnc and forwarding the ports required for vnc to work. He told me I should change it to a different port number to make it more secure. I tried, that but it messed up my internet connection and didn't seem to work. I am not sure if I was doing it right though. How can I make vnc more secure by forwarding to an uncommon port? thanks.

[Andybikecrazy]

ahhh thats what I need to do. I should have known that I need to change the ports in vnc server... thanks

I am running only windows firewall right now... which I have heard isn't that good. My other firewall is blocking filesharing and messing up my network and I need to get it figured out.