Opening Ports on Your Home Router
Last week I told you about the benefits of VNC and being about to
log into you machine remotely from anywhere in the world. In
order to be able to have access to your home computer from
anywhere, you have to configure you router's firewall to
allow access to the VNC server. The process of doing this is
“Opening Ports”. You'll need your computer's
IP(Internet Protocol) address, as well as your router's IP
address. I'm also assuming that you have a high-speed
connection as well as a router with built-in firewall between
your high-speed modem and your computer. The router I'll be
generally referencing is the Linksys, however the process is
similar for any of the routers on the market. So let's get
started.
In order to gain access to your router's administration
panel, you'll need it's IP address. There are several
default configurations out there. On Windows go to Start->Run
and key in cmd then press “Enter” on your keyboard.
This will open a command window. Type in ipconfig and
press enter. You'll get back several lines of information.
The one we're looking for is IP Address…..: followed by a
string of numbers. The most common are 192.168.1.100 or
192.168.2.100. You may be different than the examples I've
just given and that's ok. Just jot this number down on a
piece of paper. The other number we need is the one listed beside
Default Gateway…:. This is the IP address of your router and
using the IP examples above would most likely be something like
192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1. Again your's may be different.
Just jot it down with the other number.
Now that you have your Default Gateway's or Router's IP
address, you can log into it and make the necessary changes. The
first thing you want to do is open a browser, Internet Explore or
Mozilla Firefox will do the job. In the address bar you will type
in the numbers you wrote down for the Default Gateway. Then just
press the “Enter” key on your keyboard. This will
load the login page for your router. The default username and
password for most Linksys routers on the market is username:admin
password: , that is that the password is blank or sometimes just
admin. In any case it is listed in your router's setup
instructions of the owner's manual. While you're there,
it may be a good idea to change the admin's password. Once
you're logged into the router you'll see many options and
things that you can configure. Look for an option similar to
“Applications & Gaming”. Click it to enter those
options. Once there you're looking for “Port Range
Forwarding”. Under the “Application” column
enter VNC, then in the “Start” column enter
5900, this is port that VNC Server listens on. In the
“End” column enter 5900 again. Now in the
“IP Address” column enter the IP address of your
computer, that's the first IP address we wrote down earlier.
The check the box in the “Enable” column. Now just
click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the
page. You've just opened a port on your router to allow
Remote Access to your computer from anywhere using VNC. You
should password protect the VNC server on you computer because at
this point anyone could have access to your computer. Worth
mentioning is that if you shut down the server, no one will be
able to log into it even if the port is open. Next week I'll
show you how to find your external IP address, that's the one
that you ISP gives you. So that you can log into your computer
from anywhere anytime.
