[brlug-general] VNC and NAT/firewalls

[Joe Fruchey]

Okay, here's the deal... I want to connect to my Windows machine at
work from my Linux box at home. The problems with this are (A) I have
a private IP at work with firewall, and (B) Internet access from work
is only available through a proxy.

I've seen some solutions:
1. BumpVNC.com will act as a relay server, but you have to use their
software, which of course runs only on Windows. Plus, you're
connecting through someone else's server.
2. Reverse VNC, but wouldn't that require me to be at work to start
the connection? Sure, I could start it before I leave, but if the
connection gets lost at all, it's lost until I can restart it, right?
No point in that.
3. SSH tunnel to a relay server, but then the SSH tunnel has to stay
open all the time, plus my webhost doesn't have SSH port forwarding
enabled. So I'd have to find another server.
4. SSH tunnel to my home PC, but what if I need to reset my router, or
ever reboot my PC?

If I have to use my Windows PC at home to use my work machine via
BumpVNC, then so be it, but I'd like to get some feedback.

Joe