VNC? RDP? Something that does this?

[SinNisTeR]

I work for a company whose users (about 70%) are outside the main office's local network. I'd like something that runs as a service and I could connect to a user's machine that sits behind his own firewall and has a dynamic IP. I guess it's almost like making VNC peer to peer... I think LogMeIn IT Reach has something like it, but it's way over priced. Anyone know of a way or software so that I can get all my users, both in and out of the LAN, in some centralized list where I remote to their machines?

Thanks!

 

[kevinthenerd]

Real VNC is free, but I don't remember the catch. I used to use it all the time. Non-commercial use only maybe?

Edit: I would also recommend an SSH tunnel to get in and out of the firewall and to get an encrypted connection.

Edit again: If you want an easy-to-use listing, enable HTTP Java client serving on the realvnc daemons and just make an HTML page linking to each of them. That gets ugly if the workstation has the same or lower resolution as the server, though.

 

[SinNisTeR]

for HTTP java, don't I still need to open the port? I'm trying to avoid messing with firewalls and what not. What I need is something like GoToMeeting/etc that automatically hole punch the NAT... kind of like a P2P network with VNC.

 

[Allanv]

we have a logmein page just for our remote uses and we use the free one, if a new user needs help we change he password to the site and get them to install the logmein client then we help them..

 

[Nothinman]

How do those users get to your network resources? If they're VPN'd in you should be able to use whatever VPN IP they currently have.

 

[SinNisTeR]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
How do those users get to your network resources? If they're VPN'd in you should be able to use whatever VPN IP they currently have.

We use Citrix for our remote users.. I was thinking of having Hamachi installed, but if they log off, then the VPN gets killed (and I can also limit the traffic through hamachi to be VNC only...)

Allanv, logmein sounds great, but I wish it was:
1. cheaper
2. installed as a service, so that if users log off, I can still access the machine.