Remote Desktop to a machine behind a University firewall

[imported_Phil]

So my sister's just moved to University, and I want to be able to help her out with her PC as she's not terribly PC-literate, bless.
When she was living at my parents, I was using Remote Desktop and a port map on their router to take control and remove spyware (sigh) etc.
Now she's moved to Uni, I'm trying to find a way to do that still, and I highly doubt that they're going to open a port for me, especially as it would allow access to their network.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to go about this?

Cheers

 

[kingsrook7]

Go To My PC

 

[imported_Phil]

Thanks, although it's a little pricey. I was hoping to do something with the tools I already have

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
So my sister's just moved to University, and I want to be able to help her out with her PC as she's not terribly PC-literate, bless.
When she was living at my parents, I was using Remote Desktop and a port map on their router to take control and remove spyware (sigh) etc.
Now she's moved to Uni, I'm trying to find a way to do that still, and I highly doubt that they're going to open a port for me, especially as it would allow access to their network.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to go about this?

Cheers

Check with the IT department. You may be surprised to find that they have made provisions for such a situation or have a licensing agreeement with gotomypc or some other commercial application.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
So my sister's just moved to University, and I want to be able to help her out with her PC as she's not terribly PC-literate, bless.
When she was living at my parents, I was using Remote Desktop and a port map on their router to take control and remove spyware (sigh) etc.
Now she's moved to Uni, I'm trying to find a way to do that still, and I highly doubt that they're going to open a port for me, especially as it would allow access to their network.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to go about this?

Cheers

Check with the IT department. You may be surprised to find that they have made provisions for such a situation or have a licensing agreeement with gotomypc or some other commercial application.

That's a possiblity, certainly.
However, I'm wondering if I can tunnel a VNC session to her machine, or something similar to that.

Something akin to a program that sits on her PC and waves its hands in the air while jumping up and down, because, let's face it, the chances of me being able to hit her machine from outside the University are pretty slim.

 

[dblevitan]

One thing I've done in the past is use ssh. On your side you will need a linux computer (or a windows ssh server - I'm not sure if there is a free one). On her side she will need something like putty (I suppose she's running windows, but any ssh client will do). She will have to make a ssh connection to your computer and open a remote tunnel connection from your computer port 5900 to localhost port 5900 (read the manual on exactly what this means). In putty this can be setup as a profile so she would just have to click a couple of things and put in a username/password. You would then be able to connect over VNC to localhost:0 and your connection would be forwarded through the encrypted tunnel to her computer.
Hope this helps,
David

 

[kamper]

It is possible for her to send a Remote Assistance invitation from her computer. I've never used it before so I don't know how it works but maybe it would constitute an outgoing connection which the firewall would (hopefully) allow.

 

[wbresson]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
So my sister's just moved to University, and I want to be able to help her out with her PC as she's not terribly PC-literate, bless.
When she was living at my parents, I was using Remote Desktop and a port map on their router to take control and remove spyware (sigh) etc.
Now she's moved to Uni, I'm trying to find a way to do that still, and I highly doubt that they're going to open a port for me, especially as it would allow access to their network.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to go about this?

Cheers

Check with the IT department. You may be surprised to find that they have made provisions for such a situation or have a licensing agreeement with gotomypc or some other commercial application.

That's a possiblity, certainly.
However, I'm wondering if I can tunnel a VNC session to her machine, or something similar to that.

Something akin to a program that sits on her PC and waves its hands in the air while jumping up and down, because, let's face it, the chances of me being able to hit her machine from outside the University are pretty slim.

you can use VNC to connect in reverse, in the VNC documentation look up "listen for connection"

 

[imported_Phil]

Thanks for the help guys - looking into the Listen mode of VNC should work, although if they've blocked VNC traffic then I'll have to use SSH with a tunnel to get around that.
Hopefully that'll work

 

[RegisteredJack]

Offer the University Admins some "dope" to poke a hole in the network for you...

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Thanks for the help guys - looking into the Listen mode of VNC should work, although if they've blocked VNC traffic then I'll have to use SSH with a tunnel to get around that.
Hopefully that'll work

You can run vnc on any port so unless they're analyzing packets you should be fine. When I was in residence I had a bandwidth limit and they'd cut network access off for the remainder of the week if you went over. Don't know if she has this or how much traffic vnc creates but you may want to keep an eye on it.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: RegisteredJack
Offer the University Admins some "dope" to poke a hole in the network for you...

Oh. Oh, my sides. Oh, they are splitting.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: Dopefiend
Thanks for the help guys - looking into the Listen mode of VNC should work, although if they've blocked VNC traffic then I'll have to use SSH with a tunnel to get around that.
Hopefully that'll work

You can run vnc on any port so unless they're analyzing packets you should be fine. When I was in residence I had a bandwidth limit and they'd cut network access off for the remainder of the week if you went over. Don't know if she has this or how much traffic vnc creates but you may want to keep an eye on it.

Theoretically, could I run it over port 80, or some other common & usually open port?