Remote access – dial-up versus broadband 1

[Glasgow]

As will become apparent, I am a bit of a comms ignoramus!

We used to support our own customers by dialling into their server and either addressing their directory structure directly or use PC Anywhere – i.e. using standard telephone network at each end. Also, in the past, we would have suggested that their individual users connect in the same way on the rare occasions they wanted remote access.

However, we have gone broadband and so have most customers. What do we do to effect connections to their servers. Do we need to address them specifically somehow (e.g. IP address) and what security issues would we have to address. Taking the simple case where I have broadband at home and broadband at office, how would I go about connecting?

Thanks in advance.

 

[fs483]

Hello,

It depends on the broadboard service you have. You do need to connect using the IP of the computer however if the IP is dynamic then you will need the client to give you their IP each time you want to connect to their server. If they have a static IP then it's easier. Now if they are on broadband, then they probably also have some sort of firewall, the firewall must also be configured to allow remote access. Also, if they have more than one computer connected to the Internet Connection but all behind a single IP, then you will need to do port forwarding... It all depends on how the server is setup and what type of connection.

Here are a couple of ways I logon to my clients servers and workstations :

For clients with static IPs
1- Create rules to allow remote access (port 3387) for remote desktop through the Cisco Firewall
2- Port forward each public IP to each server (clients usually buy a batch of 15 IPs that come with their Internet Conexion)
3- If I need to connect client's workstation, then I first use remote desktop from my laptop to the server. Then from the server I remote desktop to the clients PC because the clients PC don't have public IPs, they are in the private IP range.

For clients with dynamic IPs
1- We setup an account with DynDNS a company that assigns a url to the dynamic IP (

http://www.client.dyndns.com).

2- Install client software that will constantly check your changing IP and update DynDNS servers
3- Do the same as above.

This solution works ok but isn't as reliable as it is with static IPs but the costs involved are lower. You get what you pay for !

Hope it helps, this is very general but is one working solution that I've been using for a year now.

Anthony

 

[Glasgow]

Many thanks for the info Anthony - I am wiser for it and will explore a solution when I get some time.