Here is my situation. I have a imac G5 that I would like to use to remotely connect to my 78 year old fathers imac G4 for the purpose of helping him learn to use his computer. I have OSXvnc(server) and COTvnc(client) and would like to tunnel VNC through SSH. I also have a D-Link 604 router (NAT firewall)
I have scoured the net for information on how to accomplish this and have found a lot of information. Too much for me to digest really. I think I probably have gathered all of the “puzzle pieces” but I have not been able to get it all together in a functional way. I should also mention, I have downloaded a neat piece of software called SSHTunnelManager. It is designed to make the port assignment/forwarding process easier to handle. My real problem is that I am to novice to understand all the terminology I think.
Can you please give me specific instructions on how to use OSXvnc to reverse connect (Dad doesn’t have static IP) to my Dads computer tunnelling through SSH for security. I am really at a loss and my Dad is in real need of assistance. Thank you so much.
IMHO I think that you would be better off just having OSXvnc running on your father’s Mac without have to reverse connect. If you want your father to setup a reverse connect he is going to have to enter a command from a terminal himself. This is not going to be very convienient for someone that is not computer savvy, let alone someone that is not comfortable with a Mac.
Your father is probably going to need to allow VNC as an allowable service through his firewall before you can establish a connection. System Pref > Sharing > Firewall. It will be from this panel that he can add VNC as an allowable service or he can click stop to disable the firewall completely.
Next, depending on whether or not he is behind a router you may or may not need to enable port forwarding. I’m not too sure what SSHTunnelManager does with port forwarding but if your father is directly connected to his modem then you can just use the WAN IP address as the IP address to connect to. The port number to connect to should default to 5900 unless otherwise specified.
If you read the instructions in www.tinyapps.org/vnc/ “Free and easy remote access (through firewalls and NAT routers) with VNC reverse connections” , you will learn see how to use VNC in reverse to avoid any tunnelling or port forwarding. I have used these instructions and they work. Let me know if you run into any problems. S