Shared iMac shows up in finder only when home

[tootall]

Hi,

I would like to access my iMac with screen sharing. Just before leaving home the iMac showed up in my MBA's finder in the "shared" section and screen sharing worked great. However, now that I am traveling and need to access it, it does not show up in the finder anymore! Why?

Do I need to be on the same network?
Is it because the iMac may be sleeping now?

Some help would be appreciated because I am 6 hours drive away from home and need to access the computer... thanks in advance...

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Yes, it is because you need to be on the same network, which is not a given as you are six hours away from it (even at snail speed, it would be too far).

To connect to your iMac remotely via the internet, you need to have a VNC / Remote Sharing service installed / enabled, but as you probably didn't do that (?), you are out of luck.

Is no one at home, that could help you? What about using Dropbox for future travels?

 

[MarkMS]

1. If you didn't alter any settings to get screen sharing working on the local network, then you will not be able to screen share on the road.
2. No, it's not because your iMac is sleeping. You connected to the iMac using a local ip address and to connect outside of your home, you will need your external ip address and a bunch of other things.

Anyway, I hope you get the files you need. Here are some things you can do next time to make sure screen sharing works on the road.

1. EASY SOLUTION #1. If you have OS X Lion on both the iMac and MBA, you can use screen sharing on the road if you enabled "Back to Mac" in System Preferences>iCloud on the iMac. I've never used this, but I know it's part of MobileMe that migrated to iCloud and it's functional according to Apple.

2. EASY SOLUTION #2. Download LogMeIn and let them do all the work for you. Same with TeamViewer.

I use Logmein all the time. It's fast and pretty secure. Even has a feature in the free edition that wakes a computer if it's asleep. https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

TeamViewer is secure according to their website. I have a buddy that controls many of his business desktops/servers with it. http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx?cdsplit=D

3. DIFFICULT. Setup a VNC server. You'll have to download a server host app and client apps to connect to the host. You'll also want a VPN and SSH enabled to keep your remote desktop connection private. It's a hassle to set this up if you don't know what you're doing. Also you'll need a static ip address from your ISP. If you get a dynamic ip, you'll need to setup a managed DNS service with someone like dydns.com.


Hope this helps.

 

[tootall]

thanks for the info, would like to ask two more things:


1) I use a french OS so my translation may be wrong, I guess "back to my mac" is the next to last icon before "locate my mac" in the iCloud preferences

2) what does "remote session" do in the "sharing preferences"

You may check the pictures to help you out...

Thanks a lot, it's great to learn these new features.