How Do I Connect To My School Computer From Home?

[Dragnov]

Well I'm new to this networking stuff, and trying to work things out.

I have a computer at home, using a regular modem and such. I also have a computer at school connected to a router and cable modem. Say I want to access data on my school computer from my home computer....

How would I do this?

I'm not really sure but is this VPN? I mean if I forgot to bring a file it would be a real pain to drive back or something. I can't afford a laptop just yet either... I would like to use the Wake On Lan feature if possible due to electric bills also.

 

[kendogg]

Im not really sure what VPN is although I know what it stands for (virtual private networking).

but why not set up a FTP server on the school computer and install FTP client program on your home computer. If accessing files are all that needs to be done...

 

[cleverhandle]

FTP and VPN would both accomplish what you want, in different ways. Presumably, you've used FTP and know what it's about. You could just set up an ftp server to serve out My Documents, probably configuring the ftp server not to accept anonymous logins of course. VPN is much more powerful, and generally more difficult to set up. With a VPN connection, the two computers will be in the same workgroup - the main advantage being that you can access files with regular file sharing interfaces rather than the clunky FTP interface. Either way, you would need to do some router configuration to get things to work, but there lots of posts on the subject 'round these parts.

 

[Bglad]

The easiest solution is PCAnywhere or equivalent.

Wake on lan only works for private lans. It doesn't work well for computers that are connected to the outside world. Your computer will wake up every time it gets pinged from anywhere. It will never really turn off.