[NCLUG] rdp, vnc through nat

[Bob Proulx]

Matt Rosing wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out how to operate my father-in-law's or parent's 
> machine remotely from my machine so I can do some stuff for them. To try 
> this out, so far I put gnome-rdp on my machine and I put a vnc server on 
> a windows machine and now I can control my windows machine...

I followed advice from friend Rob and installed VNC on the windows
machine and placed an icon on their desktop labeled "Share Desktop
with Bob" with the options "-connect vnc.proulx.com:5500" already
provided in the shortcut so that all they need to do is to click on
the icon and they are sharing their desktop with me.  

Mom: "My internet is broken on my machine.  Can you fix it for me?"
Me: "Okay.  I will look at it.  Click on the share desktop icon."
Mom: "It isn't happy today."  Me: "It's temperamental.  Have you been
talking nice to it?  Click on the share desktop icon for me?"  Mom:
"It gets an attitude.  Some days it gets strong headed and just
doesn't want to do what you want it to do."  Me: "Yes, some days it
does that.  Mom could you click on the share desktop icon for me so I
could see what the problem is?"  Mom: "I don't know why things always
have to keep changing.  Can you fix it for me?"  Me: "Yes, yes, things
keep changing.  Could you click on the icon like we did last time the
machine gave you trouble?"  Mom: "What do you want me to do?"  Me,
after counting to ten: "Click on the Share Desktop With Bob icon."
Mom: "Oh, I guess I should turn it on first."  [Eventually get
connected.]  Me: "Oh, I see.  A new Firefox update is available for
install.  Okay.  Got the Internet fixed for you." :-)

Since the remote machine is calling outbound out through the firewall
then having NAT on their firewall isn't a problem.  On my end I ssh
port forward from my firewall back to whichever machine I am using at
that moment (laptop, desktop, whatever), start up a listening vnc
client and I can see their display when they connect.

The best combination for me on MS-Windows (YMMV) was TightVNC using
the Mirage display driver for acceleration.  Then simply using "ssh -R
5500:localhost:5500 firewallmachine" on my GNU/Linux desktop and
starting up a VNC client on my local desktop with "xvncviewr -listen"
to accept the connection.  I am sure there is an endless potential
discussion on "best" software combinations to use but easy and
sufficient and reliable were more than adequate for me to drive the
remote machine and debug problems there.

Works great!

Bob