Using Xp's Remote Desktop to Control Home computer

unnameduser

I use Logmein.com to do the above but I want to do the above. How do I go about it?

My home computer has an internal private IP address in the 192.168 range. Obviously if i use this for remote desktop I will connect to a computer in my LAN at work.
So I presume I use my home external IP address. How do I get the (eircom) router to forward this request to the target computer. I was thinking that it might have something to do with enabling IP passthrough and manually configuring the target computer to have the same IP address as the external IP address. Am I on the right track here and if not, what should I do.

Also, doesn't my external IP address change occasionally. If so, do I have to keep updating the manual IP address on the target computer.
Thanks in advance

Hal1

Ok you will have to create a rule on your router to allow you access and I'm not familiar with the eircom ones, can't imagine there that complicated. Have a read of this, it explains how to connect to a vpn even if it has a dynamic IP.

Snowbat

Set up a TCP port forward in the router from a high port number (you could use 3389 but it will attract script-kiddies) to 192.168.X.X port 3389. This will forward any incoming TCP traffic on that port from the internet to your home computer and allow you to connect to it remotely using rdesktop.

If your home computer gets different 192.168.X.X addresses every time it boots, consider setting it up on a static 192.168.X.X address. If your router's DHCP server can be configured to allocate IP addresses based on MAC, you can enter an IP address and your home computer's MAC address to get the same effect.

You can use a free service like DynDNS to get a hostname that will always point at your router's current IP address. Many routers have a dyndns client built-in, otherwise you'll need to run a dyndns client on your computer to keep the hostname mapping updated.

unnameduser

cheers folks