Have a look at LogMeIn as well
http://www.logmein.com

Similar stuff to Hamachi

Hi Thanks..

I did look at at that...
But it appeared to look more involved when done over the internet than using Radmin which I already have,
and Hamachi.
I maybe wrong?

Hi Thanks...

I did look at that, but it works out about

Granted if you have more than one PC on the end of a connection with one IP address, it is a little tricky to perform multiple port forwards and listeners to the machines, but if your machines are XP, and you only have one at "home" then it is a single port forward on your router to the PC's IP. If (say) you wife/gf or whoever you mentioned is "out and about" she would send a remote assistance request to you without knowing anything about the local network architecture and assuming they are not pro-actively blocking the RDP traffic (which could well be the case with any of these web clients you are looking at too) then you can remote desktop her machine.

The problem comes when you are in a corporate environment as all the businesses we support start with a firewall list of no access, then have protocols allowed on the basis of need, rather than the home approach which tends to be allow everything. We also ensure all our corporate sites run a transparent proxy with authentication so odd-ball "over the web" apps don't get thru. We also have comprehesive URL/IP filter lists to prevent this kind of traffic too.
I appreciate its different if we are talking about a public wi-fi hotspot or similar.

I think RDP is definately worth a look as its free, and damn effective at its job.

In reply to:

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Hamachi appeared(on the surface) to be the simplest solution?

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It might be for situation 2. Whatever you do, you will have to find a way of contacting your wife when she is online and has an IP you either know or can discover. If Hamachi can achieve that miracle it would indeed be doing well (though if it merely does the same as the various proxies that are around, it wouldn't be doing anything very miraculous).

Why not let her do the contacting, in which case, it is exactly the same as the first case.

Contacting from outside your system by a VPN is about as simple as I think it could get just using standard features which are incorporated in Windows. (Note, none of this is Microsoft propriety, it exists in the real world and they appear to have implemented most of it well, though they have some big holes on the better security levels).

I operate Radmin over a VPN. I wouldn't use it instead of one and I do not see how it can establish one.

Thanks...

A bit more research in order I think

Thanks...
Maybe I misunderstould Hamachi?

I thought it creates a network for you, with each PC having a 5.x.x.x IP
Using Radmin, I thought I could just connect to the 5.x.x.x IP, like I do with the 192.x.x.x I do at home?

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Oct-06 01:28:37)

Hi Thanks...

Still some reading for me to do...

O.K. on the Corporate world...
I appreciate some what different and more of a challenge.

The private ranges defined by RFC 1918 are:
10.0.0.0 --- 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)
172.16.0.0 --- 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)
192.168.0.0 --- 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

The DHCP service included with most routers can be configured to allocate local IP numbers in any of these. I don't think anyone other than IANA can allocate IPs in the 5.*.*.* range.

Hamachi does provide a proxy so that you could establish a VPN to your wife's laptop but if that were all you wanted from it, there are other ways (e.g. http://www.dns2go.com) but costs may not be negligible.

Hamachi would appear to have merit, but for a network of your size with one fixed IP base and two laptops, you ought to be able to achieve all you want using facilities already there. You say that you want to be able to connect from home to your wife's machine when she is out and about. That will be difficult if, as is likely, she is only intermittently connected and, even more likely, has dynamic IP. (Since only she knows when she is connected, it would make more sense in most cases to let her initiate the connection.)

One point in favour of hte Hamachi system is the use of Public Key Encryption which would be very helpful in setting up connections with larger numbers of unknown members. Encryption is easier (and possibly more secure) using symmetric keys which need to be entered into both machines - not difficult when they are in the same location at times,

http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/vpn_setup2.html provides information on how to set up a "Remote worker" VPN but it relates to a Draytek router so will need additional information for your own, especially if it does not include a VPN server.