[SOLVED] realVNC - a n00b question

[thr33]

i have realVNC on my home computers. i have a wireless network with 2 other computers and a blackberry curve wirelessly connected to it. one of the computers is a mac laptop. realVNC on the pc's (xp home) and something equivalent on the mac.

in my home, from any computer, i can see any other computer. the IP's are all 192 addresses, and i can see other computers with no problems. i know my 192 is my local address and it doesnt change.

the problem is when i try to connect to my home computer from an outside machine. before i leave in the morning, i check http://www.ip-adress.com/ to get my ip address (it changes all the time, i dont know why). i already know my work ip, which never changes. i already plugged that into my home server as an allowed client. i have complete admin priveledge at work so the firewall thing doesnt affect me. i can turn it off

any way i plug my home ip into realvnc at work and it will not connect. what am i missing?

[Cellus]

This is most likely due to your router not properly forwarding the connection. You will need to set up Port Forwarding on your router. What is the make/model of your router?

As for your continually changing IP address, broadband Internet Service Providers commonly issue to home users what is known as a dynamic IP address. Long story short, they change your IP address once in a while for organizational and efficient use of addresses purposes. Stuff you don't need to really worry about. So you don't have to keep looking up your new IP address (which would be rather difficult if it were to change while you were not at home to look it up), you want to set up something on your router known as Dynamic DNS. Long story short for that, Dynamic DNS will keep track of your ever-shifting public IP address and allow you to use a non-shifting static DNS address (eg: example1.example.com) like an alias, so you don't need to keep looking it up and changing your settings. This feature is dependent on whether your router supports it (most modern routers do). There are two major/popular web services which provide Dynamic DNS for free for home use: DynDNS and No-IP.
Note: You will need to install and run a small update client on your computer to let the service know you still actively use it, or else after 30 days the service will automatically expire. These small programs are very small and take almost no resources. They should be kept running at all times (when installing/configuring, it should run when your computer starts up). For DynDNS: DynDNS Updater. For No-IP: No-IP DUC.

[johnwill]

If you run the DynDNS client, it requires no router support, I've used it for years. OTOH, as you say, most newer routers have provisions for one or more dynamic IP address updater. I tried to use that feature on a router and one flaw surfaced, it didn't do the automatic forced refresh that the free DynDNS service requires ever 30 days, and I'd get an email message saying my service was going to expire. I went back to the PC client and disabled the DynDNS support on the router. I haven't tried it on my new router, but I suspect it might have the same issue.

[Cellus]

Unfortunately the reliability of Home/SOHO routers does not even compare to bigger enterprise solutions by a long shot, so finding a router which fails to automatically update DynDNS does not surprise me in the least (sadly). However to be honest when I first started using DynDNS I never actually had to deal with a Home/SOHO router which automatically updated itself, so I always ended up installing the client software on the PC anyways.

So as to nip any problems in the bud, John's recommendation to run the client anyways is spot on. The client is incredibly small, unobtrusive, and takes almost no resources whatsoever to run (it's basically just a tiny program which pokes the service regularly on a timer), so running it should be no problem even on a low-end PC. The system is almost idiotproof, so unless your PC is actually disconnected from the Internet for a full month, you shouldn't have any problems keeping the DynDNS account active.

[johnwill]

Yep, I'd also recommend using the client.

[Raylo]

Not my thread/issue but, hey, I learned something here. I gotta get the DynDNS client so I can refresh my netcam url that way instead of logging onto my DynDNS account to do manual updates. Thanks, guys.

[thr33]

hey you guys. thanks for the responses. what i ended up doing what getting a dynDns url, and installing the updater. now i can remote from my blackberry and from my work computer

thanks again

[johnwill]

Great, a two-fur with one thread.