macOS Need to access my Mac remotely

[keymoo]

Hi there,

With Windows its very easy to access your home or office PC remotely, there's so much choice. I am currently using www.gotomypc.com as it works through corporate firewalls over https. Is there anything similar for the Mac. i.e. I want to access my Mac from the office.

Thanks,
keymoo

 

[Yebot]

Give these a shot.

VNC Server:
http://www.realvnc.com

VNC Client:
http://www.geekspiff.com/software/cotvnc/

Of course it might not work through that firewall ...

 

[keymoo]

...Of course it might not work through that firewall ...

Correct! VNC or "traditional" remote access programs do not work because of routers firewalls and proxy servers in between. There *must* be a solution to this, must be...

 

[ehwizard]

Get a shell account somewhere for $10/month (cheaper than gotomypc.com)

then on the computer you want to access
- install vnc server
- run vnc server
- ssh -R:5900:127.0.0.1:7777 <shell account name>@<shell account server>

from where you want to access
- install vnc client
- ssh -L:7777:127.0.0.1:5900 <shell account name>@<shell account serveR>
- connect to vnc at 127.0.0.1 connection 0 (i.e. port 5900)

that works though I may have the ports reversed on -L , -R. i always do them backwards.

 

[keymoo]

The trouble I'm having is that ALL outbound ports from my workplace are closed except http traffic. I therefore cannot use VNC, shell, or anything like that. GoToMyPc uses http as a transport and therefore works through all proxies and firewalls.

I would like something like this for the mac, is there anything? My corporate firewall is very tight.

Thanks,
keymoo

 

[ITASOR]

There's a way to do this with Mac and make the VNC web based like on http://andrejan.com/ (public vnc account). You may wish to ask him, or pay him to set yourself up one of those!

 

[legacyb4]

You still need a way for public (Internet) traffic to reach your Mac sitting behind the corporate firewall.

I would actually do the smart thing and make a case for getting secure access to your Mac through VPN rather than putting yourself at risk for deliberately crossing company policy. If outbound HTTP is the only protocol allowed, your company must have good reason to be so strict.

My $0.02.

There's a way to do this with Mac and make the VNC web based like on http://andrejan.com/ (public vnc account). You may wish to ask him, or pay him to set yourself up one of those!

 

[keymoo]

You still need a way for public (Internet) traffic to reach your Mac sitting behind the corporate firewall.

I would actually do the smart thing and make a case for getting secure access to your Mac through VPN rather than putting yourself at risk for deliberately crossing company policy. If outbound HTTP is the only protocol allowed, your company must have good reason to be so strict.

My $0.02.

My Mac is sitting at home. I'm trying to access it from work. I can access my home PCs from work. The corporate policy here is not strict, rather the implementation is sweeping prob. for admin reasons, because the company is so enormous and they can't manage making allowances for people so they just apply a blanket policy to all. I'm not sure they'd understand how to do it anyway, as it took them four weeks to create a Windows domain account for me. Anyway, I'd rather focus on the solution of getting access over http, as this is the only way it's going to work. The solution on the PC was simple (www.gotomypc.com), and I want a simple solution for the Mac.

You should have a look at how GoToMyPc works, it's quite clever. In a nutshell, the host machine does not listen for requests, rather it initiates a connection to the GoToMyPc servers and maintains a heartbeat. On every heartbeat it checks to see if a connection is "incoming" and then it connects to the remote machine. This way, all connections are outgoing over http, which means that firewall configuration is completely redundant because 99.9% of firewalls allow outbound http traffic. I want this kind of set up for the Mac.

Anyone?

 

[keymoo]

There's a way to do this with Mac and make the VNC web based like on http://andrejan.com/ (public vnc account). You may wish to ask him, or pay him to set yourself up one of those!

Thanks but I couldn't access this from the office, but it worked OK when I tried it at home. Looks like it's not using http as the screen update transport.

 

[witness]

I had this problem with my previous company. Their firewall restrictions were so tight that People had to drive home download what they needed for work, copy to CD then drive back to work. It was a ridiculous situation! And by forcing people to take stuff in and out via CD, security was completely bypassed.

My solution was to write a simple application that "tunnelled" data through their firewall on port 80. That way I could RDP/VNC home through the firewall with no problems. I also used the application for surfing without their firewall/proxy restrictions.

 

[keymoo]

My solution was to write a simple application that "tunnelled" data through their firewall on port 80. That way I could RDP/VNC home through the firewall with no problems. I also used the application for surfing without their firewall/proxy restrictions.

I'd be very grateful if you could share that prog, or show me a similar one.

 

[witness]

I'd be very grateful if you could share that prog, or show me a similar one.

I don't have it nicely packaged with an installer, etc.... but I'm happy to give out copies of the exe/src to anyone who sends me a PM with their email address.

It is based on .NET so you will need either .NET or Mono installed to use it. It also lets you use Remote Desktop through proxy servers, which I find handy from time to time. But it won't let you connect a VPN through it.

And I'm not going to support it, so if it doesn't work in your environment you'll have to modify it yourself or come up with your own solution. (Unless you're willing to pay )

 

[mduser63]

I know this doesn't help you immediately, but the current top story on the MacRumors main page is encouraging. Apparently Citrix is thinking of releasing a Mac version of GoToMyPC.

 

[40167]

Thanks but I couldn't access this from the office, but it worked OK when I tried it at home. Looks like it's not using http as the screen update transport.

Nah, its not using port 80 for the actual connection...

Though i would sugjest you scan the network for open ports... I highly douth only port 80 is open... as that would make business kinda hard seeing that you wouldnt be able to send emails out very easily (unless they have all corporate email going webbased; which would be insane in my opinion)

If port 80 really is the only open port at all on that network, you might be able to route it trough some sort of tunnel (I was told a while back to use stunnel [though i think its pc only] to make IRC connect over port 80; as my wireless gprs connection doesnt allow irc ports)

 

[tacShooter]

Set VNC on your mac to use port 80 or 443, then use x.x.x.x:443 in the client to access it. Now you're using VNC over that port. I've not tried it, but you should be able to do that pretty easily.

--tacShooter