17 replies to this topic

[Blue Protoman]

So I have a few questions about that;

• Are there any tutorials on how to do it? (I use Windows XP)
  
• Can it be used to play games? (Not hardware-intensive ones, mainly indie games)
  
• What CAN'T be done with this remote administration?
  
• How can I access my PC at home when I'm out?
  
• What else should I know?

Thanks.

Edited by Blue Protoman, 29 November 2010 - 01:21 PM.

[Alerino]

So I have a few questions about that;

• Are there any tutorials on how to do it?
  
• Can it be used to play games? (Not hardware-intensive ones, mainly indie games)
  
• What CAN'T be done with this remote administration?
  
• How can I access my PC at home when I'm out?
  
• What else should I know?

Thanks.

my 2 cent
1) get yourself a dyndns account and turn your IP into something like blueprotoman.homeip.net
2) open 443 (SSH) and 5900 (VNC) ports on your router/modem
3) if you want VNC, update your broadband/cable with higher upload bandwidth
4) google it, you will find plenty of pages; keywords: VNC, SSH

[Caine]

[list]
[*]Can it be used to play games? (Not hardware-intensive ones, mainly indie games)

I wouldn't expect too much from it. It basically depends on how much the screen changes in each frame.
For instance, watching a movie like this typically won't work. A card game or minesweeper on the other hand would work just fine.

[meandu229]

Its very useful, especially if you set up wake on lan on your pc,so you can boot it then a minute later login via your prefered method (I use VNC) but dont think about playing any games which require much movement,
Its good for grabbing that file you forgot to get before you left,
Setting off download/uploads while your out,
Scaring people with text to voice by making your PC start talking (especially fun if there is a webcam on it)

[Blue Protoman]

And I could probably think of some other fun thing to do with it. Nothing lost if I can't. So, is there a detailed (but easy to comprehend) tutorial out there, including for the port-forwarding? (I use a Linksys router.)

[Alibobar]

2) open 443 (SSH)

Port 443 is for ssl. ssh uses 22 (by default anyway)

[Alerino]

it is default, but i've always heard that using SSH thru 443 port is safer, dunno if it's a myth

[WizardStan]

There is nothing intrinsically more secure about port 443. Port 443 is the standard for https connections, if I recall correctly, but it isn't the port number that makes it safe, that's just a convention. What would make SSH over port 443 more secure is simply that it is a non-standard port. Standard ports are usually the first point of attack; change to a non-standard port and you gain a little additional security in that they may not attempt to hack that particular port.
443 is probably not the best port for that, since it is also a standard port that may be attacked, so the hacker may notice it as live and figure out it's an ssh server. Try something that doesn't normally have something attached to it: there's about 64000 possibilities, I'm sure you can find one

[Blue Protoman]

If I open a port, can someone hack into the router and see what I'm doing?

[typs lik dis]

Yes.

[atomicthumbs]

the best protocol for remote administration is RDP; you need XP Professional to use the RDP server

[Blue Protoman]

Well, how can I do remote administration on Pandora and have it be secure, then?

[WizardStan]

If I open a port, can someone hack into the router and see what I'm doing?

In theory. There needs to be something exploitable on that port though.

Well, how can I do remote administration on Pandora and have it be secure, then?

Having a port open is like installing a door or window into your house: best you can do is include a good lock with the installation and trust that the lock maker designed it to be difficult to open without the key.
In general, computer locks are pretty secure. At the very least it takes no small amount of time to hack a computer with some reasonable security on it. Combine that with the fact that no one really cares about what you do (I'm assuming no one would really care what you do, they're primarily focused on big companies where there's more challenge and payoff) and you should be able to rest easy in your relative safety.
You can do things to increase your security further. There's "honeypots": fake ports designed to be easily hacked but still look like a real computer on the other side to make the hacker think there's nothing there; non-standard ports, the computer equivalent of installing a secret passage under your house that only you know about unless the hacker spends a lot of time looking for it. There are third party programs you can install that will monitor your open ports and will send alerts if it notices any activity: sometimes it'll just be you logging in, but that one time you were in class and you get an alert...
The media likes to spread fear of "hackers", but most of the security breaches I've seen recently were companies not doing what they should have, or employees doing something they shouldn't have. Never plug an unknown USB stick into your computer, for example.

[Blue Protoman]

OK, then. So how do I actually configure my PC to allow a Pandora to get through it?

[pder]

I like to install a third party firmware on my router like OpenWRT that includes an ssh server. I disable password authentication to avoid dictionary attacks and only allow public key authentication. If I need to access any of my machines inside my firewall I just set up an ssh tunnel through the router.