Easy way to set up a remote connection?

T

tigrr

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My mom just bought an iMac yesterday, but feels pretty clueless. I'm going to get her a good newbie book when I find one, but prior to that I'd like to show her the very basics. Since I live far away from her and I've just heard about "remote controlling" computers I thought this might be the way to go.

As I understand it, with a successful setup I can "see" her desktop, and with my mouse I can open up folders, run applications etc. all while she sits back and observes. This would be ideal, especially while talking on the phone at the same time.

We both have a broadband connection. I have two computers here (a PC and a Mac) which shares a connection via a router.

My mom's house also has two computers, but on a wireless connection.


I've looked into free software for this kind of thing, but I'm baffled. Is there an absolutely newbie guide to this sort of thing?
I'm on a Powerbook G4 (1.67GHz) with MacOS 10.4.9. I suppose, since she's just bought her Mac that she's also on 10.4.9.
 
The type of software you need is called "VNC". In essence you need a VNC server on your mum's Mac, and a VNC viewer on your Mac.

For the server, you could install OSXVNC on your Mum's Mac (a good, easy to use option), or alternatively use the built-in VNC feature if your mum has 10.4: go into System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Desktop. There is an option in the configuration for VNC connections which you can enable.

For the viewer, my favourite is called Chicken of the VNC. It is fairly responsive and fast. Finally, you just need to connect, which requires you to get the IP address of your Mum's computer and type it into the "Server" field on the VNC viewer. To get an IP address, one easy way is to use a site like http://www.whatismyipaddress.com/
 
This is great, but, can this be done then using Apple Remote Desktop? because that's what I'm using and would like to do the same thing, be able to support other people's mac's across the internet.
 
Unless the computer you're connecting too has a static IP, it may be a pain to connect, as the address will change every day or so. You could get something like dynDNS, which will track your dynamic IP, and provide a route to it.

The next step would be to enable ARD on the client computer. This can be done in the Sharing pane of System Preferences. Set the access privileges to something that will work for you, and set a password that is non-trivial (as the system will be available online).

Then, you must enable port-forwarding, and setup your firewall to allow connections. I believe that ARD uses port 3283. This needs to be done on the client side.

Finally, on your computer, in ARD, do File -> Add by address. Enter the IP on the client, along with the username and password.
 
also do a search for tunneling VNC over an ssh connection.

there's a bunch of sites explaining howto setup something like that,
it's a bit to much to try and explain here now.. sorry.

but basically the advantage will the be that regardless you mothers' homeIP, you can have her execute a script (double-click something) that creates a tunnel between her and your machine, that you can use to run all kinds of services over. for instance VNC/remote desktop.

look for ssh tunneling osx vnc
 
I'm also trying to set up apple remote desktop, but what if the machine I want to acces is working behind an airport express? Obviously the IP numer of the airport express is accesable from the internet, but then I'm still not logged in onto the Mac, which has a LAN IP address...
 
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