on 1-9-2009 12:41 PM Marko Vojinovic spake the following: > Sorry for an off topic post, but a lot of you folks are sysadmins here or > there, and just might have a suggestion... ;-) > > I have a WinXP machine that is to be unattended for a period of 3 years (yes, > I know, it sounds ridiculous, but still...). What I need is remote access to > it to perform regular system maintenance, virus cleanups, occasional software > installations, reboots, config changes, etc. > > Of course, rdesktop would do it, or vnc server or something else. The problem > is that this machine is behind a NAT, and I cannot access it remotely from > outside (and I need access from whereever on the planet I may happen to be). > > Basically, I need to setup some type of ssh tunnelling from XP (machine A) to > my static-IP-24/7-high-bandwidth-CentOS server (machine B) and then further > to my laptop (machine C, Fedora 10) located elsewhere (possibly behind > another NAT, I can't know in advance). I have root access for all three > machines (A, B and C). Of course, all three are on different LANs. > > However, I have never done anything like this before, so I wonder what is the > best method of creating such a setup? > > One of my ideas was to make some script on A which would connect to B once > every 15 minutes or so, look for a flagfile, and if present, initiate > connection with C directly or through B if necessary. That means, if I want > access from C to A, I ssh from C to B and create a flagfile, wait 15 minutes > or so, and a rdesktop (or vnc or other) appears on my laptop. In theory. > > Or is there some other XP-tool that might do what I want out of the box? > However, it need be absolutely automatic, there will be nobody around to do > anything locally on A once I leave it. > > Another idea I had was to have machine A running as a virtual machine on a > CentOS host (vmware or such would suffice). Then I could easily configure the > above A-to-B-to-C scenario, shutdown the virtual A, pull its hard disk file > to C, start it locally, perform maintenance, push it back to host A and run > it again as a vm. But this is highly complicated, takes too much time and > bandwidth, so I hope something simpler is available. > > Yet another idea is to ask A's ISP to provide a static IP for that machine, or > to forward some available port to A, which could be used by rdesktop in some > customized fashion. But the ISP may refuse such requests, and I need a robust > solution. > > Yet even another idea is to put another CentOS machine (D) between A and A's > ISP (create a local LAN). Then initiate ssh -X connection from C to D > (somehow, via flagfile scenario or such), and then rdesktop from D to A over > a local LAN. > > The main problem is NAT, if machine A had a world-accessible IP, I would just > rdesktop from C to A, but alas, it doesn't... :-( > > Any suggestions about the best way of doing this? > > Thanks, :-) > Marko There is an application based on VNC called teamviewer that can be set to start automatically and points to a central server so that you can always find the system. It crosses NAT easily and can be set with a fixed password. Maybe it will help you. -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!!
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