Remote connection or something similar - suggestions?

[gaidensensei]

Hey, have a little dilemma with this area. Seeing if anyone can offer some tips.

I'm planning on having two rigs in the event I go somewhere out of state for future studies.

I will build a junk rig and leave it at the parent's house in CA, while I will access it across somewhere in the east coast (still deciding).

Now what exactly is my purpose with this is that I want to mainly obtain books (and perhaps software) that are on PDF, which I think is prohibited to torrent on an education resnet. That CA rig will be remotely connected into where ever I am on the east, and probably end up sending it to myself over AIM/MSN or something.

My experience with remote connection is mainly from the 2006-08 era, where XP RDP was a major thing I did in IT back then. It was either that, or using PCAnywhere.

Now it's been a few years later. I'm wondering if there is a way that I can also send a network ping or something along those lines to remote boot the alt rig? I've read a skim part of it but it was back for the XP days. How about for now, in 2010?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Atheus]

Assuming American university networks are anything like the ones here, then it's going to be locked down, so you're unlikely to be able to make a RDC connection or anything else useful to your home machine. You'll need to set up an HTTP tunnel to your home router which will then allow you to forward whatever connection you want. You'll also need a dynamic DNS name as you probably don't have a static IP at home.

 

[USAFdude02]

Assuming American university networks are anything like the ones here, then it's going to be locked down, so you're unlikely to be able to make a RDC connection or anything else useful to your home machine. You'll need to set up an HTTP tunnel to your home router which will then allow you to forward whatever connection you want. You'll also need a dynamic DNS name as you probably don't have a static IP at home.

Another option is to do the Cisco SSL VPN. If you can get a cheap 1712 or something like that, it works great. Does require a little more knowledge of them.

 

[DnetMHZ]

logmein.com has a Wake-on-LAN feature, I can't vouch for how well it works as I've never tried it.

 

[joeybaker]

Your best bet is still to remote desktop in via VNC/RDP/Whatever.

Take the point about the DNS to heart. Your best bet is to signup for the free opendns and install their client – that will ensure that you can always access your rig via a domain name.

If the network is locked down and won't let you use the ports you need, setup a VPN on your computer in CA. On a mac this isn't too difficult (I've never created one on the PC side), but you can also use free VPNs.

 

[ViviTheMage]

logmein.com has a Wake-on-LAN feature, I can't vouch for how well it works as I've never tried it.

This feature seemed to work fine for me .. I have about 12 boxes/pc's on logmein ... mostly family, since they bug me so often...and WoL worked.

Or you could try teamviewer.com , that's good in a pinch.

 

[gaidensensei]

Hmm.. I did use logmein but that was with a paid account for work back then. Does the free version have any limits or something that I should know?

Yeah, I'll figure the connection will have the ports blocked. Need to get back in the VPN loop, hoo-boy.

 

[somethingsketchy]

the "free" version of LogMeIn doesn't allow you to transfer files between local and remote hosts, however the paid version does.

Other than that, your options are limited, unless you do FTP for file transfers from your remote host (in CA) to your local host (at college). Again as others above have mentioned it depends if your school network policy allows for FTP and other such services.

 

[JackMDS]

A combination of ultraVNC with its embedded AES Encryption + DNS service for the external IP, is free, safe, can transfer files, and do much more.