[aaanorton]

With the release of Apple Remote Desktop, I asked this in a thread in the Software forum...

Speaking of ARD...
Can you set ARD up to connect to a remote machine across the web without an IP (using a DNS maybe?)? Or, once you connect to the machine (using the IP), will ARD remember how to find it in the future after the ISP has changed it's IP? And finally, can you connect to more than one comp at a remote location through a router, without having to change the router's port mapping?
In TB2, you can name a computer with an email address, which gets registered on TB2's IP locator server. I don't think ARD works like this. So I don't see how you could connect (and continue to do so) to a machine on a dynamic IP, like most cable ISPs use. Maybe Apple added some magic to do this that I can't figure, in which case I'd assume they also worked out that last question. It would be great to not have to reconfig the router for each connection.

Anybody here got a lead on this stuff?

[Camelot]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Can you set ARD up to connect to a remote machine across the web without an IP (using a DNS maybe?)?

DNS is just a way to put a friendly face on IP addresses so us poor dumb humans can use it.

So you'll always have an IP address. You may or may not have a DNS name, but you'll never have a DNS name without an underlying IP address.

That said, for your desire to be able to access multiple machines behind a NAT device (at least, that's what I'm assuming you're after), the simplest way would be to either:

1) Setup multiple port maps in the NAT router (so that, for example, port 12345 -> machine 1, 12346 -> machine 2, etc.) - this way you can connect to public.ip.address:12345 and get routed to machine1, or public.ip.address:12346 and get routed to machine2, etc.

or 2) get a NAT router that supports VPN, then you can establish a VPN connection to the NAT device and connect directly to each machine on the internal network as if you were there locally.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by Camelot:
DNS is just a way to put a friendly face on IP addresses so us poor dumb humans can use it.

So you'll always have an IP address. You may or may not have a DNS name, but you'll never have a DNS name without an underlying IP address.

Well, I was gonna try a DNS redirect service like DynDNS. But they only give me a DNS, not an IP. I was hoping that DynDNS would be able to resolve to my IP as my ISP changes it. They have an OS X client that updates their server with new IPs. I really don't get how this gets accomplished without something like this or TB2's email registration scheme.

1) Setup multiple port maps in the NAT router (so that, for example, port 12345 -> machine 1, 12346 -> machine 2, etc.) - this way you can connect to public.ip.address:12345 and get routed to machine1, or public.ip.address:12346 and get routed to machine2, etc.

I've played around with TB2's demo and here's what I had to do: In my router's (Asante FR3002AL) config page, I go to Distributed Servers Setup and enable Service Port 407 (specified by TB2) to direct to my internal static IP. This works well, but when there are two machines at a site, how could I direct 407 to each machine as needed? I've set both the machines up with static IPs and then just change the router config from IP to IP when I need access to the other machine. So what am I missing?
Thanks for the help.