Advice on Remote Access Needed (Please)

Hi my boss as asked me what we need to do so that he can access his machine on our network remotley. To be honest I'm not 100% sure myself so thought I'd ask the question

My setup is an ISDN router connected to a 24 way HUB with a 2003 domain server and 20 workstations

He would ideally want to ' log on' as if he was a local machine, so get access to the programs on his office workstation but from a remote site, this site could be anywhere UK, Europe or even further.

Is this possible?
If so what do I need and how do I set it up?

We are already in the process of updating all our workstations to XP Pro and we will have a hardware firewall as well at some point in the not to distant future.

Thanks in advance

John Kennedy

If he wants to basicly remote control his PC at the office I would get a cisco PIX and setup VPN access then put PCanywhere,remote desktop, or VNC on his remote computer and his work PC.
The expensive alternative would be that you publish his apps on a citrix server for remote users to use.

You could just use the in-built Remote Desktop (it comes with XP). Open up the System applet and make sure that on the Remote tab that Remote desktop is enabled. You may need to add his account to the allowed users list (if he isn't an admin).

Then, you just need to make sure that port 3389 is opened on the firewall and being forwarded to the internal computer. To connect to the computer use the Remote Desktop Connection Client (it can be installed on almost any version of Windows) and enter the IP address of your router in the computer name box.

Thanks I will try what you suggested.

JFK

I hope you manage to get it working

Ok, I suggested using the VPN then connecting to the PC for the security aspect, by all means if you dont mind being open to brute force attack then just open the firewall and have PCanywhere or remote desktop or VNC listening and waiting for a port scan. Personaly everyone with a port scanner knows which port belongs to each app and when you open them ports you tell them what app to use and all they have to do now is use a brute force password generator I have actualy walked into a client site as they where getting jacked because they had PCanywhere listening on a public IP and didnt know it all they knew was files where being deleted hehe.

I was just trying to suggest an additional quick and easy solution that would work, without having to purchase extra hardware etc. You're quite right that it's not nearly as secure as a VPN solution, but it's always good to know what options you have to certain problems

I am using Wingate vpn on our networks using that you always open remote desktop al la pcanywhere, brute force "shouldnt" be a problem as each client has to import the "fingerprint" of the server.

Mail me if you need more help

JonO