Connection: What am I doing wrong

Vine
1

I have read and followed the manual and FAQ for Vine Server. I cannot connect my 2 macs using the server and viewer over the internet. The local connection works fine (and is a joy to work with I might add), but I need to be able to see the mac running vine server from outside the house. I’ll need to access it form a PC sometimes too. Both Macs running are running OS 10.4.8, server has VNC ports enabled in Firewall, Belkin router has ports forwarded to the server Mac. I’m accessing my static IP as well, not local IPs doled out by the router. Whenever I try to connect I get:

Connection Failed
Connection Refused

Ive checked to see if the ports are enabled on gotomyvnc.com, they are.

Is there some simple thing I’m missing? I’m 99% positive my cable provider only blocks port 80. All others are open.

Is it possible that I can’t go over the net on the same router that a local connection is available from?

Heeeelp…

2

Two quick things to look for that might help you find the problem:

  1. Look in the Vine Server log, if you don’t see evidence of an attempted connection then it’s still a networking issue. If you do then it’s a compatibility type of issue. I think the first line when a connection starts is:
Protocol version 3.3
  1. Using a browser outside your firewall enter
http://MYIP:5900/

and see if you get

RFB 003.00X

If not then you still have a networking issue somewhere.

Hope that helps.

3

Thanks so much. I will check these things out. When you say “use a browser outside your firewall”, I’m not sure what you mean. Does that mean I should put a machine on the DMZ with my router? Or do I just disable the OSx firewall altogether?

I’m sorry, my networking understanding is spotty at times. I really do appreciate the help. I can say this about my network. I’ve never set up anything out of the ordinary until now. I’ve generally just run with default settings so I don’t know if I need to enable file sharing or any of that stuff. I also think I should probably take the router out of the mix, but then I won’t be able to use more than one machine to test if it’s working or not. Is there a way to verify that my machine is accepting clients from the internet without actually using a client?

Thanks again for the help!

4

The idea of using a web browser from outside your firewall is just to make a quick check of whether your VNC server can be reached from outside. As Jonathan said, if you enter “http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:5900” as the URL in a web browser (replacing all the x’s with your external IP address), you should see a web page that just says “RFB 003.003” (or something very similar). That’s the initial response that a VNC server sends whenever something opens a connection to it.

If you don’t get that response, then you’re not reaching your server. Make sure the VNC server is running on port 5900 (if it’s not, then change 5900 in the URL above to the port number you are using). If it’s running and the browser test fails to reach it, then you’ve got a network issue (most often either a routing or firewall problem).

If you get the “RFB …” response then you’re reaching the VNC server okay and know that your network setup is fine. If your VNC client software can’t connect at that point then it’s probably due to a configuration or compatibility issue between the client and server.