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QOTD: What Remote Control Software Do You Use?

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US


When you have more than one computer and you're traveling, it helps to be able to access all your machines remotely.

I have several computers at home, and it helps to be able to control them all from a central computer. Running around from machine to machine can be a big pain. Using a remote control software is essential to being able to efficiently manage your machines. I have used several GUI controllers before: Microsoft's own Remote Desktop, Remote Administrator, VNC, Apple Remote Desktop, and of course when I'm going into my Linux boxes, I just SSH in--I'm not using any GUI on my Linux machines.

On the road, remote control is a real necessity. However, things can become problematic for those who have dynamic IP addresses. Once your ISP changes your IP, you'll have no access to your computer from a remote location. That said, there are several ways around this. You can use a dynamic IP client-service solution that allows your remote computer to automatically inform a live server of a new IP change.

For example: homepc.yourdomain.com can always point to the right IP address if you have a client installed on homepc. There are several services that offer this, DynDNS is a service I've used before.

More recently, I've been using LogMeIn instead. It solves the same problem that DynDNS solves, but you don't get your own sub/domain. It's really easy to use and you won't have to worry about dynamic IP services.

The question of the day is: What remote control software do you use?

There are 15 Comments.
Other Comments
  • 0
    belrik , May 14, 2009 9:57 PM
    PS I avoid LogMeIn and other services as I don't trust 3rd parties to punch my firewall, SSH tunneling is provably secure and also reliable. Combine that with a dynamic DNS client script running on my server and I'm sorted.
    For work I also use purely SSH access although the network admins seem to think that telnet is still ok. Silly californians, living in the 80s still!
  • 0
    belrik , May 14, 2009 9:54 PM
    SSH tunneling and VNC/RDP
  • 0
    Devastator_uk , May 14, 2009 12:19 AM
    I use RDP and VNC at work (over LAN) and occasionally SSH at home.