Communicating between two networks via the internet

[ThatRickGuy]

Hiya, I'm working on a piece of software that quite simply connects two devices over a network using a TCP client. One of the devices is a pocket pc and has a high likelihood of being used outside of it's "home" network. So what I'm looking to do is to create a connection to the home network from what ever network I'm on. Obviously the home network has it's own firewall, and it is behind a proxy from the ISP, so their's no way that the non-routable IP of the hardwired device is going to be directly accessable to the wireless pocket PC when it is not on the same network. Does anyone know of a way to create that line of communication short of loading up a server with a public IP of it's own and a dynamic DNS service?

-Rick

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[DTracy]

VRAS perhaps?

David Tracy

 

[ThatRickGuy]

VRAS? Virtual Remote Access Server? is this some kind of service that can be run on a server outside the firewall or something?

-Rick

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[ThatRickGuy]

Okay, I've done some snooping arround on the VNC forums. Looks like if I get a dynamicDNS service for my "home" network's firewall/router, then set it up to auto-forward the port directly to another device inside the network, it might just work.

-Rick

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[SimonDavies]

That will work a treat for you, it's the same kind of setup I have myself.

I would also suggest tho that you double up on your DynamicDNS clients, put one on your router and one from another vendor on your internal client, they will both report the same IP address (the external port on your router) but it would help you determine which device actually fails should you have connection issues.

One thing to be aware of, certainly on the Netgear routers with DynDNS clients installed on them you can't connect directly to the client whilst you are on the internal network, I spent hours trying to trouble shoot issues, I though I had portforwarding problems but infact the router just won't forward the client requests internally.

Secondly, I would also suggest that if you go down the route of VNC you go for the enterprise client rather than the free one, this is for a couple of reasons.
First of all you can change both the http and java ports to seperate ports should you wish to and secondly you have encryption which you don't have with the standard version.

If you have any more questions please don't hesitate to ask.

Simon

SimonD.
MCSE NT4, MCSE\MCSA 2003, MCSE\MCSA 2003:Security, CNA3.12\IntraNetware, CNE IntraNetware, CCNA and Security+

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