how do i connect to my home gentoo?

[vibhavgarg]

my gentoo desktop at home is connected to my wireless router which is connected to the dsl modem. my isp provides a dynamic ip address. i would like to run a vnc session to the m/c from my office. however the ip address assigned by the isp is not visible from the office. is there anyway i can setup a tunnel to my m/c using ssh/vpn etc?

[OdinsDream]

Oh!! I know this one!!! *raises hand*

So, you've got a home network where your ISP gives you a dynamic public IP address, and you're using some kind of NAT inside the network.

Here's the brief:
1. Figure out how to forward ports on your base station/router
2. Forward the VNC ports (5900 - 5910 should be plenty) to the correct machine in your home.
3. Set up an account with dyndns.org (or similar service) so that you can have a hostname (like yourname.dyndns.org) for the dynamic IP assigned by your ISP.


So, first, the port forwarding. If your machine at home is the only one there, that is, you don't have multiple machines sharing your connection, then you can probably go for the "DMZ" option in your wireless base station, instead of carefully forwarding ports by number. You might consider the latter option safer, though, but DMZ will definitely get you started. With the ports forwarded to your laptop's internal home IP address, you should then be ready to connect from an outside host.

For that, you'll need to either write down your dynamically-assigned IP address and carry it with you, or sign up for a service that performs the same function. I use http://www.dyndns.org for this. After setting up an account, you pick a name which gets .dyndns.org appended to it. By running a client program on your linux box (ddclient, for example) when your ISP changes your address, the client will connect to dyndns and notify them of the change. Then, the address you picked will always forward correctly to your house, that way you can use whatyoupicked.dyndns.org in place of your actual IP address.

Once you get all -that- set up, you can have a look at this thread for more on actually getting VNC working:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=232604

That thread describes one kind of VNC, where you connect remotely and what you see is exactly what your desktop looked like when you left it at home. That's what I use, but there are also other options. If, for example, you want to connect to your machine at home and use a fresh, undisturbed desktop, and leave your existing applications untouched, you can also do that with vncserver (also linked to in the above thread).

In that thread, and the howto it links to, you can learn how to set up basic VNC as well as more secure SSH tunnels to handle VNC. I'd suggest getting the basic stuff working first, then moving (quickly) to the more secure SSH tunnel. In that case, in the above section when you forwarded ports to your laptop, you only need to forward port 22, instead of the range that VNC would like to use. These would be tunnelled over port 22 along with your SSH session.
_________________
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Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.

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[vibhavgarg]

no the isp dosent give a public ip address! i have vnc up and running but because the ip address is private, i cant connect to it. i have sbc yahoo and they dont provide public dynamic ip addresses and their static ip address packages are too expensive

[OdinsDream]

I don't mean to sound contrary, but the fact that you're connected to the internet means the ISP is giving you a public IP address. Try going to http://www.whatismyipaddress.com

That's your public IP address, assigned dynamically to you by your ISP. Your home computer does have a private IP address within your home, but to the rest of the world, you're using the public IP address.

Your wireless base station takes requests on the public side and translates them to the private addresses in your home. This is called NAT.

If your ISP really doesn't give you a public IP address, then they aren't an ISP, because they aren't providing you service to the internet, they are connecting you to their network. If that's really how it's working, then I don't have a solution for you, and I'd suggest you find another ISP, honestly.
_________________
s/(?<!gnu\/)linux(?! kernel)/GNU\/Linux/gi

Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.

http://john.simplykiwi.com

[vibhavgarg]

sorry for the confusion! i had the wrong ip with me and i assumed the worst! thanks for your help!