Accessing home computer using its IP

If all DNS does is host name resolution, then theoretically, shouldn't I be able to enter my ISP assigned IP into a browser from anywhere and access my home computer?

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tahjzhuan

you'd have to use the public ip address assigned by your isp if I'm not mistaken.

Ricka182

First, if your ISP uses DHCP, which most do, then you never really know your IP at all times, unless you have an exact copy of your ISP lease times, which isn't realistic. Second, you can not use your IP address to access your computer unless it is a server of some type, or you have previously setup a remote connection, which is not doable with DHCP, because the lease changes frequently sometimes. Security also prevents that. If I knew your IP, I could also access your computer. You can use PC Anywhere, or GoToMyPC to remotely access your system. Now I may be wrong, or a little off, but I've tried that before with no success, so I believe that is a correct answer. Anyone else?

Webmaster

Many ISPs nowadays reserve the IP address (i.e. map it to the MAC address of the telco supplied cable/dsl router) which can be considered a static IP address but you can't register a domain name and map it to your home IP because the ISP can change it it their convenience. But tahjzhuan is correct, as long as the IP is public you should be able to reach it from anywhere on the web. It won't always work though, their may be restrictions on inbound connections set by your ISP, but this is often not the case. For example, some multi-player games allow you to host a game and let somebody else on the internet join it by connecting to your IP.

But the answer to your exact questions is yes. All DNS does is name resolution, the eventual connection is base don the IP address. But as always there are some sidenotes, most important is that some systems require a connection based on the host.domainname. It will resolve the name to an IP address, but will do a reverse lookup to check if the IP matches the hostname that is used in the connection. A common example that often uses this check is an SMTP server.

w^rl0rd

I recently signed up for a dynamic DNS account that allows me to have a host name that maps to my changing IP through a TSR on my machine that reports my IP to the provider when it changes. I'm experimenting with it right now, so I'm not exactly an expert, but that is why I was asking.

Thanks for the help.

tokhss

a little bit of fiddling with th program, youll get routed correctly in no time

Ghent

Connecting to your home computer via it's IP address is very easy if your running any flavor of windows NT. By default it shares everything you have to "Everyone", so all you have to do is input \\youripaddresshere\C$ into any web browser, and you should have full access to your local harddrive.

Webmaster

Ghent wrote:

Connecting to your home computer via it's IP address is very easy if your running any flavor of windows NT. By default it shares everything you have to "Everyone", so all you have to do is input \\youripaddresshere\C$ into any web browser, and you should have full access to your local harddrive.

That is incorrect. Although NTFS permissions are assigned to Everyone, the hidden $ shares are administrative shares.