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7822
January 23rd, 2004 06:00
Static vs dynamic IP adressing and remote access programs
Is it possible to use a remote access/control program (PC Anywhere) with a router using dynamic adressing (DHCP)? ( I hope I have the technical terms correct)
We own a small business. I love being able to use PC Anywhere to access the office computers late at night/on weekends from home to enter data into an accounting program etc. At the office we have a DSL connection (1,5 Mbps) with static IP adresses . At home I also have a DSL connection (384 kbps) , with a wireless router (D-Link 614+) and dynamic IP adresses. The phone company charges $ 29.95/mo. for the 'home' setup ( 1dynamic IP adress), while we pay $79.00/mo. for the service at the office(5 static IP adresses,4 used) Before I make the switch, I would like to know if I can continue to use PC Anywhere. The connection speed at 384kbps would be adequate for our needs, since nobody is watching streaming video. One needs to enter an IP Adress for the 'host' in PC Anywhere in the 'remote' . My understanding is that 'the internet' cannot 'see' behind a router using dynamic IP adressing - indeed, when I use an IP adresssing query on my home computers,they all show the same IP adress.
Office Computers: Pentium II 300 Mhz , 256-288 MB RAM , Windows ME
Home: Inspiron 8200 , 2.0GHz P4 , 512 MB RAM , Mobile Radeon 9000 , 40 GB Hard drive ,Windows XP Home
Dimension 4600 , 2.66 Ghz P4 , 784 MB RAM , Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB , 40 GB Hard drive , Windows XP Home
Dimension 8250, 2.0GHz P4 , 256 MB RAM, NVidia 440 , 40 GB Hard drive, Windows XP Pro
G__Man
32 Posts
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January 23rd, 2004 09:00
drkpfr -
It's not clear to me what you're referring to by "switching". Do you mean lowering your office service plan to match the service you have at home and installing a router there? If whatever you switch to (at the office?) changes the service to use a Dynamic IP instead of Static, this will make connecting via PCA much more difficult, but not totally impossible. Ideally, having the Static IP at your office is the most desirable. That way, the Remote Connection settings at your home PC should never need to change. Changing to Dynamic addressing (with only 1 IP & a router) at your office would/could cause the WAN IP address there to change periodically, and you would need to know what it changed to so that you could enter it into the PCA Remote at home. Think of the IP address as the "phone number" at the office that PCA needs to call. If/when it changes, PCA will be "calling" the old (wrong) number. Dynamically assigned IP's normally expire and renew to a new number after their lease date passes. This effectively would change the "phone number" at your office each time.
Using a router at the office (with only 1 STATIC IP) would be a good setup if your ISP has that option (to possibly save you some $$ on the four extra WAN IP's which you would no longer need). When using the router at the office, you would need to set a Port Forwarding rule in it to send the PCA traffic to the office PC you wish to control. On the Port Forwarding page in the router's interface, you would forward ports 5631 & 5632 to the LAN IP of the machine you want to connect to.
If you are currently using all 5 of your assigned IP's from the ISP, and wish to add more machines in the office, installing a router may still be a good idea, as it will take one of the assigned IP's and split it into another 253 internal IP's allowing you to connect that many more PC's if you wish. The router would also provide NAT firewall protection to all machines connected to it.
If you enjoy PCA as you state, do yourself a favor and retain at least one STATIC IP at your office if possible, and install the router in any case, even if you don't change the service plan at all.
GMan