Remote assistence

ga740416

Hi

I have the following situation:
one Windows XP station in a LAN at the office, and one SUSE Linux 9.3 computer at home;
while at home, I want to be able to view the Windows desktop remotely without disturbing the remote user. I connect to the internet through PPPoE.
Please tell if there is a tool to do that (for free, if possible).

G.A.

JDMurray

I use RealVNC from www.realvnc.com which is free. You won't disturb the user (unless you hit the keyboard or mouse while the VNC window has focus), but the user will know from the state of the VNC icon in the task tray that some is connected. Also, RealVNC does not have file transfer capability; only desktop access is provided.

sprkymrk

Aren't there 2 versions of VNC, 1 insecure and 1 that uses encryption? I think the one w/o encryption passes credentials and passwords (along with everything else) in the clear.

PCAnywhere is not free, but it's a good product.

Also, corporate firewalls may get in the way of any remote access solution you choose.

JDMurray

There are several different VNC clients/servers all based on the VNC protocol. Some may have features similar to pcAnywhere, such as encryption and file transfer. I prefer to use the light-weight RealVNC and to provide separate a VPN or SSH solution.

ga740416

Thank you jdmurray

I will try that.

nama

in order to access the remote pc, is it necessary for it to install the PCAnywhere as well?

JDMurray

Yes, you need to run pcAnywhere on both the machines that are on each end of the remote access session. All remote access packages have a client and a server software component. Machines that are to be accessed will run the remote access server software, usually as a daemon or service. The machines that will do the accessing run the remote access client software, which is usually just a program or application. It is also possible for a single machine to be both a remote access client and server as well.