Control mac from work - ports blocked

[bmcgonag]

I want to be able to control my mac from work, I can do it from anywhere except here because they block the ports needed to do it. I tried LogMeIn for mac, and it worked great at home, and from outside through internet, but can't use it because they block that page from loading.

Is there any other way or alternative to Apple remote desktop or VNC?

Thanks,

Brian

 

[72930]

Nothing I can think of now, but iChat Leopard will be able to do this...

 

[GimmeSlack12]

Well how about you just change the ports? If you try to VNC from your office you can choose the port to access say 59101 (instead of 5900). Then at home you can have any incoming port access to 59101 be routed to 5900 where ARD or VNC will be ok on your home computer.

You can route the new port number via your built-in firewall options or your port forwarding options if you have a router. Is that sound like it might work?

EDIT: Anything in particular you are trying to control? Cause you could always try SSH or FTP instead.

 

[bmcgonag]

Well how about you just change the ports? If you try to VNC from your office you can choose the port to access say 59101 (instead of 5900). Then at home you can have any incoming port access to 59101 be routed to 5900 where ARD or VNC will be ok on your home computer.

You can route the new port number via your built-in firewall options or your port forwarding options if you have a router. Is that sound like it might work?

EDIT: Anything in particular you are trying to control? Cause you could always try SSH or FTP instead.

Actually SSH and FTP are also blocked.

I'll try it on a different port, but I would like it to be on Port 80, as I'm able to reach port 80 on my home mac from work....but not sure I can set that.

Brian

 

[plinden]

Actually SSH and FTP are also blocked.

What ports aren't blocked? Because you should be able to forward from port X to port 22 as GimmeSlack12 suggested for VNC.

By the way, ports < 1024 are reserved for the system, so aren't generally configurable by users.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Please note that if your work has the ports blocked for security reasons, then be sure to read your employment agreement, and IT use policies. It might very well be against company policy to do what you are trying to do. Make sure you don't spend so much effort doing this that you get yourself fired.

If, however, you have a legitimate business reason to be accessing your home computer from work, then just ask your IT department for help.

 

[bmcgonag]

Please note that if your work has the ports blocked for security reasons, then be sure to read your employment agreement, and IT use policies. It might very well be against company policy to do what you are trying to do. Make sure you don't spend so much effort doing this that you get yourself fired.

If, however, you have a legitimate business reason to be accessing your home computer from work, then just ask your IT department for help.

Actually if I get it to work, it will be a learning experience for me, and tell them where there is a hole.

I'm sure they've got all the bases covered. If they don't want me to do it, I doubt that I'll be able to do it.

Thanks to you all,

Brian

 

[GimmeSlack12]

I have a question now. How do you find out what ports are open? Port scanning or something?

And as for the solution I provided earlier in the post. It works. Just set up your router to accept a particular port and then have that routed to whatever port your Mac is listening on. I got VNC and SSH working doing this method, but for some reason can't get FTP to do it.

This is particularly useful if you have multiple Macs behind a router and you need to control them from outside your LAN.