[NCLUG] Switching IPs & Maintaining Connections

[hugh at mahon.cwx.net]

Hi Jeff,

> I have lots of virtual desktops each set up to "do their own 
> thing", e.g. one with email, irc, web browser, a ton of xterms, 
> etc.
> 
> I also switch IPs all the time: ethernet at home, wireless @ 
> Mugs or wherever, dialup cell when moving.
> 
> The problem is that each time I switch IPs, I need to restart a 
> lot of these connections. The xterms are particularily a pain 
> to re-setup. I know I could use `screen` for this, but that 
> only gets me half-way, as I'd still have to restart `screen` on 
> each of them.
> 
> I was wondering if there was some way to proxy this via 
> localhost or something, where I could just change my external 
> IP, but not lose any of the connections. Or perhaps there is 
> another way...

Hmm, do you want to connect to sessions on a remote machine (e.g., 
access things on your home system when away from home?) or have things 
running locally on your mobile computer?  If the latter I think I'd 
need to learn more about what you're doing.  If it's the former, 
here's what I've done:

I use VNC running on systems at home for such sessions, so I can start 
a session and then can access those things (xterms, web browsers, 
etc.) from anywhere I can get a network connection.  When away from my 
home LAN I can set up a VPN connection via OpenVPN and even if I 
hibernate my machine when I bring it back up the connection to VNC is 
restored. 

> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Jeff

I hope this helps.

Hugh