[MacPC]

Hi, my Macs, my PCs and my Linux boxes can all VNC each on my LAN. I would like to try out to VNC to my friend's machines via the internet. I read some articules on the net on how to set it up without success because the terminologies such tunneling, by pass the router etc. confused the hack of me. I guess I don't really understand how it works. Would someone be so kind to explian to me and give me a step by step on setting it up? For starter, I just want to be able to VNC her Mac, once it's set up, I guess I will have a better understanding and can probably figure out the rest.


Perhaps, some info might help:
On my LAN, my router is the gateway and so is my friend's. We both use Comcast Cable connection. On both ends we have OSX, Windows 2000 pro and XP pro, two distros of Linux- Ubuntu and Fadora.

Thanks a lot.

MacPC.

[Tuoder]

Okay, I am assuming that VNC already works inside the LAN.

What you need to do is configure your routers, on boths ends of the connection. They will be using NAT (Netowrk address traslation) this means that your router changes addressing schemes between the two networks it connects (the internet and your LAN). Somehow, your router has to figure out where the traffic sent to it has to go.

What you need to do is tell it what to do with the VNC traffic that it is getting. It needs to be told to take a connection on the ports that are being used with VNC uses (5900-5906 or 5800-5806 by default) and send it to a specific computer internally on a specific set of ports. Where the trick comes in is being able to reference multiple computers inside the network. The way that I would do is to use different sets of ports in reference to different computers internally. Windows computers generally only require one port. With *nixes, you should use six. Tell your router to send connections attempted on ports 5800-5806 to one *nix machine's IP address on ports 5900-5906, 5807 to a windows box's IP address on port 5900, and 5808-5812 to a *nix box's IP address on ports 5900-5906. You just need to configure the client software to make the connections on the given port. Also, static IP addresses should be used inside the network.

I feel like I am missing something here. Let me know if you need more information.

[MacPC]

Thanks Tuoder,

Basically it's the routers part that I get stuck on. I will try it.

Yes, all VNCs are working fine on my LAN.

MacPC