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10.5: Schedule OS X software updates via script
Authored by: mzs on Apr 13, '09 11:59:08AM

About the ports. My dad would call a lot needing help with an XP computer at his house, so I tried to setup vnc so I could control his screen. I do not think it was the ISP, but rather the wireless router from the ISP that prevented incoming connections, which is actually a good thing in regards to a not well patched-up XP box.

What I did is I installed putty (an ssh client for windows) in addition to TightVNC (or maybe it was ultravnc, can't remember anymore) on his machine. Then I wrote a .bat file that would ssh into my machine at home forwarding port 5900 on his machine to 5910 on mine. Since it was an outgoing connection it worked. Then I would fire-up the vncviewer on the eMac with localhost:5910 and be able to see and control his screen on the XP box.

Then I had an account on my eMac for him that I would uncomment from the sshd_config file when he would call needing help. With this scheme he actually learned how to fix the problems himself very quickly and he has not called in years. It was a lot like a classroom working together on the same machine. We could both type and move the mouse and see what was going on while talking on the phone.

So the key thing was the whole make him do the connection out instead of me in. It was also nice since no one could control his screen without him knowing (the vnc server windows service was configured to only bind to localhost).



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