pcAnywhere only works one way.

[scroce]

Have pcAnywhere 10 on each side.

We are trying to use pcAnywhere over TCP/IP using cable.

The host machine is in an office behind a router supplied by the cable co., and is using the default ports. Now when the remote machine (at a home) attempts to connect to the host (at the office), no connection is established - (it says commuications error - unable to attach to specified device - no conneciton)

however if you reverse the roles of the machines, it connects just fine.

I think this is telling me that either:

1. The ports opened up on the router that are pointing to the host computer at the office site is not configured correctly (even though the cable co said they are)

2. The cable co. told me the incorrect address for our on-site office router.

Am I mistaken , or - Is there anything else it could be.

Thank you. How much more water would there be in the ocean if it weren't for sponges?

 

[Meldric]

Can you ping the office router?

Is the computer in the office DHCP,NAT, or does it have a external IP?

My guess is that the cable company did not set the router up correctly. But at this point it is just a guess.

Who do you use for dialup at home? DSL providers often times block certain ports for "security" purposes. Just a idea.

Roger

 

[scroce]

the computers at the office all use static IP addresses. At the home, it's comcast cable service - no dialup. The funny thing is that it did work once before, but then they swapped out the router and put the new one in. My guess at this point is that they still didn't configure the router correctly.

Another point is that the service provider at the office is also Comcast - only it's a different business unit.

pcAnywhere has a feater where you can substitue 255 in the last octet of the the ip address that you are trying to connect to and it will scan the entire subnet for any listening pcAnywhere client - for example if you connect to 66.77.88.255 it will show anything using pcAnywhere listening from 66.77.88.0 to 66.77.88.254.

when i tried this, there were a few listening devices, but none that i recognized as being my router or the employee's pc - which again leads me to the belief that something on the router isn't configured correctly. How much more water would there be in the ocean if it weren't for sponges?

 

[Guest_imported]

I read that the later Firmware version for the Linksys router stop PC Anywhere from operating correctly. There was a reference to see a FAQ on the Symantec site about PC Anywhere and the Linksys router.

 

[scroce]

The issue was with misinformation given to us by our service provider. They were giving us the wrong address for our router. This has happened more than once or twice now. It can be very frustrating -

Caution to others trying this - make double and triple sure you are getting the correct information from your ISP - The way I finally figured this out was by calling 3 separate times, and getting three different answers. I then tried each answer and one of them worked. I don't mean to beat up on Comcast, b/c they do have some very competent people, however if you're trying to do something similar be ready............. How much more water would there be in the ocean if it weren't for sponges?

 

[dclem33606]

I am in a very similiar situation as Scroce. I have PCAnywhere v10 and am trying to connect from my home PC to the office PC. The problem I have is that my work PC is behind a linksys router which has a firewall. Is it possible to initiate the session from home through the firewall? Which IP do I use when trying to initiate the session?

Thanks in advance,

David

 

[Meldric]

David,

A couple things:

You will need a public IP address for your work computer. This could present a problem for many workplaces because they use DHCP with private IP Addresses internal and NAT or a proxy server to translate to a public IP. To find out what IP Address your work computer has(assuming it is W2k) do the following:

Goto Start -> Run, Type "CMD" and click "OK", type "ipconfig /all" and read the IP Address.

If it is 172.16.xxx.xxx or 192.168.xxx.xxx or 10.0.xxx.xxx than it is a private IP range. If not you can usually assume it is a public IP.

After you settle that you will need to enable port forwarding on your Linksys to enable PcAnywhere to connect.

PCAnywhere uses:
TCP: 5631 (data)
UDP: 5632 (status)

Since I do not own a LinkSys(although I had one for a while) I cannot precisely tell you how to enable port forwarding, but the manual or another thread should be able to answer that.

After all that you should be able to connect from home to work.

Let me know if you need anything else. Hope this helped.

Roger

 

[dclem33606]

Roger,

Thanks for your help. I know that the IP addresses inside the network (at work) are private and the IP address at home is public (no router or firewall). Are you saying that with a private address at work I will not be able to initiate the PCAnywhere session from home? I think I understand, but just want to verify.

BUT, I still could initiate the PCAnywhere session from work since the home IP address is public, right??

Assuming I want to be able to initiate the PCAywhere session from home, would it be possible if I purshased another public IP for work from my ISP Road Runner and assigned it to the one workstations inside the network running PCAnywhere? Would this help? Would that IP/computer still be secure?

Thanks in advance,

David

 

[Meldric]

David

If you router/firewall at work is capable of NAT(network address translation) or port forwarding you will be able to open the ports necessary to access your work computer. If you chose to do NAT then you would need to purchase another IP from Roadrunner. Lets see if I can summarize the differences between the two options:

Port forwarding: From home you could connect to your work computer, but ONLY that computer as port forwarding will forward the PcAnywhere ports in the firewall to a particular computer. Your work computer will be able to connect to your home computer without any issues. The only potential security risk I can see is if you do not properly secure the pcAnywhere with a password. The firewall should block out everything else.

NAT: You purchase a public IP address from Roadrunner and in your firewall assign that public IP to the internal private IP. This would allow you to connect from Home to work and also in the future would leave room for other computers to be accessed from home(by purchasing more ip addresses). This assumes your firewall/router is capable of multi-nat. Most home or low end firewall/routers will only support ONE external IP. Something to check on. Security wise this COULD put the exposed computer in more danger(depending upon whether you have a firewall or router). There are so many variations in equipment here it is hard to cover all the bases without knowing more about your setup.

To answer your second question: Yes, you could still access your home computer from work. Security is the key here. If you can access your home computer so can someone else. I would look into a personal firewall of some persuasion.

Hopefully I did not ramble too much. If you get me some specifics on your network(router or firewall mainly) I will be able to help more.

Roger

 

[dclem33606]

Roger,

Thanks again. Please forgive me, but I still don't understand how I would initiate the PCAnywhere session from home to work if I decide to go the IPforwarding route as opposed to the NAT option. Would I use the IP of the router since the IP of the computer is a private IP?

Also, I am looking at another option called

http://www.gotomypc.com

which it looks like it will work, but I haven't given up on PCAnywhere yet, since we already purchased the software. If I can figure out how to configure our Linksys router to do the IPforwarding and figure out hoe to connect from home, then I will be in business.

I appreciate all of your help,

David

 

[Meldric]

David
Do you have a regular email so I can send you some diagrams of your options?

Roger

 

[dclem33606]

Roger,

My email is dclem33606@hotmail.com

David

 

[dclem33606]

Roger,

I never received your email with the diagrams. Have you sent yet? If so, could you please resend when you get a chance.

Thanks,

David

 

[Guest_imported]

If you cant get PCAnywhere to work through your Linksys Router, you need to downgrade the firmware lower then 1.36

Linksys has nothing on their website about this problem and lots of other problems!!!!!

 

[dclem33606]

FYI...I was able to get my PCAnywhere working through the firewall by using the Port Forwarding tab of the firewall interface. It was simple and seems to be working great...so far!

 

[Guest_imported]

After you set-up your port forwarding on your router at work, you should reboot the router. I know it annoying for all the users in the network to go without internet for about a minute or so, but it must be done. Also, enabling port forwarding is a definate way for this single PC hosting the PCAnywhere connection to get hacked. The PCAnywhere ports are well known by hackers around the world. All port scannings of this port on the router will be forwarded to this single PC hosting the PCAnywhere connection, and it will probably be hacked at least 2-3 times within in the next year.