Remote Access?

Well ok, if that is going to be an issue, a simple remote access terminal application to that main computer works fine for that.. Not only can you operate your NNTP client remotely, you'd be able to do the same with other apps as well, remotely! We do that here from home when we want to get to and operate the PC at work how ever, we are not using standard off the shelve software for this, even though it isn't anything special, just something the IT department uses from the days of evil computing.

Linux works well for this because all the items needed are there and free, ofcourse.

Jamie

There's plenty of comparable free apps for PCs as well... just as there's plenty of good Linux software for these sorts of applications that's potentially worth paying for (e.g., NoMachine NX... while I use the free version, if I somehow happened to be running a company with lots of Linux boxes around, I'd pony up for the payware version... and there seem to be a lot of "security" companies selling commercial version of SSH, even though OpenSSH seems to be just peachy... but apparently there are some nice additional bells and whistles that appeal to larger companies in the commercial versions...)

---Joel

Try Teamviewer.

It is easy to use, free for personal use, and requires no router setup at all. Works with XP, Vista and Win7.

A lot of my customers use it, and they like it a lot.

Current version is 6 I believe.

- Tim -

Over $700 for the cheap version.

I think there is more to it than that :)

Might be able to Ggogle for "NNTP proxy". It will not preserve the state metadata from multiple newsreaders on multiple machines, though.

-- Les Cargill

That well could be. It is true for the read I use ( Mozilla ) - er, at least restoring the appropriate profile files takes you back to the state they were saved at, anyway.

-- Les Cargill

That's what I do.

Run your NNTP software from a USB thumb or external hard drive. I know that 'Xnews' from 'Lucid Software' will run from an external drive. I use it to combine and decode the binaries on this newsgroup. I just plug it into whatever computer I'm using and log in to Giganews.

If you don't need other network functions, just use Logmein Free.

(Both require software installed at the server (home) end, which also means you don't have to change any router settings.)

Ah, good idea. Thanks, Michael, I'll try that...

I agree. Teamviewer is a very good solution for computers behind a router. They use the server as a middle man to connect two outgoing network connections. It works a bit like peer-to-peer file exchange.

Yes - Don't.

A security nightmare just waiting for a hacker.

Run tightvncserver on each machine. Use different port numbers. Set your router to forward the ports to the correct machines. Go to dyndns.org and sign up for the equivalent of a fixed ip address. Tunnel thru SSH if you're paranoid. Don't run vncserver when you're not gonna be needing it.

As with any means of putting your machine out on the web, if there's anything...ANYTHING...that you wouldn't want to show up on the front page of your local newspaper, ENCRYPT IT. Treat it like everything on your system is shared to everyone...because it is.

VNC is cross platform. VNC viewer runs on just about anything with a processor. Sometimes handy to be able to run it from a PDA. If you enable the HTTP servers, you can access it from a web browser. Does file transfer. I wish it did sound.

Dyndns finds your IP address. Apart from that, there's no server to go through for anything. I like that a lot.

Check it from outside your network before you leave town. For example...with the default setting of the zonealarm firewall, it pops up and asks you to confirm access, but won't let you click "allow" remotely.

There are a bunch of other issues. If I'm watching a movie and someone vnc's into my machine, the movie blanks. There are control key issues. VNC viewer intercepts some control keys for its own use. Those don't get seen by the remote application. There are cumbersome workarounds for some key combinations. Stuff like editing a circuit board layout may be difficult.

If there's a lot of stuff going on on the screen, VNC has to send all those changes. You upload speed matters. VNC has a special display driver that can help with this problem.

VNC used to be considered to have a pretty weak password encryption algorithm.

This is the right answer. Once you have an SSH server, you can use it to tunnel almost anything else pretty securely. Unless you're on Windows, but only a madman would put a Windows machine directly on a public network, no matter what software you use. If you want to access Windows boxes, put a secure SSH server in front of them. Some routers will do the trick.

Clifford Heath (who did this for a while for a living... for a bank... for the public to move $$$ around)

still is, there is no protection against password replay attacks.

We use VNC for a couple of things at work, but don't rely on VNC passwords for anything.