On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 10:45 AM Andrei Borzenkov wrote:

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 12:17 PM Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

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I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address.

Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop.

My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing?

No, because it is impossible and TeamViewer does not do it either.

In fact it does. I have been using it in just this setup. But they have exceeded the free time it allows. So they we will need to buy a license. Or get a public IP address. No idea which they will choose. The public address offers more possibilities.

IIRC TeamViewer is free for private use. Are you using it for business purposes?

Yes it is a business thing.

There is a lot of TeamViewer-like software, which may suit your licensing criteria.

I have seen someone mentioning patches for VNC that set up tunnels via Jabber servers, no idea whether it is still feasible.

As there is a server to mediate things, I suspect it could work. I no longer have any machines with a public IP address. Company IT have been ruthless... -- Roger Oberholtzer

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 12:05 PM Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2022-11-28 11:58, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 10:45 AM Andrei Borzenkov <> wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 12:17 PM Roger Oberholtzer <> wrote:

...

I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address.

Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop.

My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing?

No, because it is impossible and TeamViewer does not do it either.

In fact it does. I have been using it in just this setup.

He means it doesn't on its own. It cheats :-)

Exactly. TeamView have a server that allows this. -- Roger Oberholtzer

On 11/28/22 10:57, Per Jessen wrote:

Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 12:05 PM Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On 2022-11-28 11:58, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 10:45 AM Andrei Borzenkov <> wrote:

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On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 12:17 PM Roger Oberholtzer <> wrote:

...

I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address.

Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop.

My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing? No, because it is impossible and TeamViewer does not do it either. In fact it does. I have been using it in just this setup. He means it doesn't on its own. It cheats :-) Exactly. TeamView have a server that allows this. Depending on your requirements, it would not be difficult to set up such a server yourself (rent a virtual machine from Hetzner or OVH). Your Portuguese client and yourself both set up an ssh tunnel to this machine. Once your networks are interconnected, you can use VNC or some such.

But I wonder about the IT department's policy regarding this.  If they've locked things down to the point of having private networks, they may not even allow ssh.  Certainly clever folks like us can figure out ways around it, but just because you "can" do something doesn't mean you "should" do something.  Purposely circumventing security policy is a firing offense in many organizations.  I've seen it happen. Regards, Lew

On 2022-11-28 20:21, Per Jessen wrote:

Lew Wolfgang wrote:

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On 11/28/22 10:57, Per Jessen wrote:

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Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

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Exactly. TeamView have a server that allows this. Depending on your requirements, it would not be difficult to set up such a server yourself (rent a virtual machine from Hetzner or OVH). Your Portuguese client and yourself both set up an ssh tunnel to this machine. Once your networks are interconnected, you can use VNC or some such.

But I wonder about the IT department's policy regarding this.  If they've locked things down to the point of having private networks, they may not even allow ssh.

I would just use the Teamviewer ports. They obviously work.

They are (both sides) using outgoing connections to an intermediate server. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.3 x86_64 at Telcontar)

On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:58:13 +0100 Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 10:45 AM Andrei Borzenkov wrote:

...

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 12:17 PM Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

...

I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address.

Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop.

My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing?

No, because it is impossible and TeamViewer does not do it either.

In fact it does. I have been using it in just this setup. But they have exceeded the free time it allows. So they we will need to buy a license. Or get a public IP address. No idea which they will choose. The public address offers more possibilities.

...

IIRC TeamViewer is free for private use. Are you using it for business purposes?

Yes it is a business thing.

...

There is a lot of TeamViewer-like software, which may suit your licensing criteria.

I have seen someone mentioning patches for VNC that set up tunnels via Jabber servers, no idea whether it is still feasible.

As there is a server to mediate things, I suspect it could work. I no longer have any machines with a public IP address. Company IT have been ruthless...

But presumably the company has a webserver and that must have a public address. Maybe there's some package that can be run on the webserver that will provide the 'server' for the connection you want?

Op maandag 28 november 2022 10:55:53 CET schreef Freek de Kruijf:

Op maandag 28 november 2022 10:16:36 CET schreef Roger Oberholtzer:

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I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address.

Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop.

My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing? I suspect that TeamViewer works because it has a server that can be contacted and, I assume, set up a tunnel or whatever it does. I don't have such a server with a public IP address.

This is something that I only do occasionally. So I don't want to buy a bunch of TeamViewer licenses if I do not need to.

Any ideas?

Did you read https://www.techotopia.com/index.php/ Remote_Access_to_the_openSUSE_Linux_Desktop ? Also: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Remote_access

-- fr.gr. member openSUSE Freek de Kruijf

On 2022-11-28 12:05, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 11:44 AM Carlos E. R. <> wrote:

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Any ideas?

Maybe... wild idea. Get an IPv6 address (via tunnel broker? is that the name?), which is public, and access that one instead.

I have told the client to get a public IP address. He is in Portugal. Seems a complicated thing. Or so he thinks. Maybe he is asking for the wrong thing. He is connecting via a 4G wireless thing.

Yes, but that is (I guess) asking his ISP for one. It costs (serious?) money. If they are on a private IP address (like 10.1.1.1), I guess their provider is using CGNAT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier-grade_NAT), so instead of asking for a fixed public IP he may ask for a dynamic public address instead, which he can tell you which it is at the connection time in different ways. But instead I was suggesting getting an IPv6 address from a third party, which can be free. Of course, you need getting another. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.3 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Op maandag 28 november 2022 12:05:24 CET schreef Roger Oberholtzer:

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 11:44 AM Carlos E. R.

wrote:

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On 2022-11-28 10:16, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

...

I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address.

Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop.

My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing? I suspect that TeamViewer works because it has a server that can be contacted and, I assume, set up a tunnel or whatever it does. I don't have such a server with a public IP address.

This is something that I only do occasionally. So I don't want to buy a bunch of TeamViewer licenses if I do not need to.

Any ideas?

Maybe... wild idea. Get an IPv6 address (via tunnel broker? is that the name?), which is public, and access that one instead.

I have told the client to get a public IP address. He is in Portugal. Seems a complicated thing. Or so he thinks. Maybe he is asking for the wrong thing. He is connecting via a 4G wireless thing.

When this client can arrange a port forwarding from the NAT server he is behind, he will be reachable as if he has a public address. The port can be any port number and when he restricts access to his system via this port to only the public address you want access from (yours) in his firewall, nobody else can have access to his system. -- fr.gr. member openSUSE Freek de Kruijf

Hi, I asked already but there was no answer. Have you tried rustdesk? just download the client on both machines, and connect. It works just fine and costs nothing. Karl Am 29.11.22 um 15:56 schrieb Roger Oberholtzer:

A bit of a followup:

The client now has a public address in the router. I can ping it.

Next is to figure out getting stuff from the router to then target machine. They have some docs on port forwarding in the router. I have suggested that they set that up. I think it only needs to know the destination IP address of the target machine (which currently is set by the router to some 192 address). We want all ports to be forwarded.

No idea if they are capable of doing this. But it's in progress.

On Tue, Nov 29, 2022 at 11:09 AM Vojtěch Zeisek wrote:

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Dne pondělí 28. listopadu 2022 10:16:36 CET, Roger Oberholtzer napsal(a):

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I have a situation where a user has a computer that they only have a private IP address for (ISP assigned). My computer is at work and also has a private IP address. Using TeamViewer, I can access the remote computer's desktop. My question is: is there an open source program that can accomplish the same thing? I suspect that TeamViewer works because it has a server that can be contacted and, I assume, set up a tunnel or whatever it does. I don't have such a server with a public IP address. This is something that I only do occasionally. So I don't want to buy a bunch of TeamViewer licenses if I do not need to. Any ideas? I suppose there is no chance You'd get VPN from Your company...?

-- Vojtěch Zeisek https://trapa.cz/

Komunita openSUSE GNU/Linuxu Community of the openSUSE GNU/Linux https://www.opensuse.org/

-- Roger Oberholtzer

On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 1:55 PM Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 7:59 AM Karl Sinn wrote:

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Hi,

I asked already but there was no answer.

Have you tried rustdesk?

just download the client on both machines, and connect.

I missed that in all the answers. I have just now installed it on my computer to see what it does. I'm waiting for it to generate the ID. It just says generating... It says "Connecting to the RustDesk network..."

I see that this is an issue many have had. The suspicion is that a port is blocked.

https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk/discussions/984 https://www.reddit.com/r/rustdesk/comments/uvvs1a/change_ports/

On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 3:33 PM Dave Howorth wrote:

telnet host port to test

Thank you, captain obvious. Which host? Which port?

On Thu, 1 Dec 2022 14:31:40 +0100 Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 1:53 PM Andrei Borzenkov wrote:

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On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 3:33 PM Dave Howorth wrote:

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telnet host port to test

Thank you, captain obvious. Which host? Which port?

Well I'm glad that Roger managed to work out which host and port. Much easier for him than me since he's the one using the rustdesk product :P

I could telnet into the server:

telnet rs-sg.rustdesk.com 21116

But still no ID generated.

I guess it needs you to supply some information before it responds, but I have no idea what you need to send, sorry. But if the telnet got through then it's not a closed port at your end that is the problem. If your company (or even department/group) has a web server, then it most likely has a public address and you could set up a rustdesk server on it. Hence why I mentioned "if Roger can get permission" in my previous mail. But you said your customer has a public address now, so figuring out how to configure that to forward to the correct place seems like the best next step, and then use some kind of direct connection.

From: Roger Oberholtzer Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2022 14:33:12 +0100 On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 1:33 PM Dave Howorth wrote:

I suppose that the public server is at a fixed port? So changing ports is only useful if you have set up your own server. Which can be done on his webserver I believe, if Roger can get permission.

The core issue is that neither computer has a public IP address and I do not have access to one (with a public IP address) where I can set up an alternate server. -- Roger Oberholtzer You can get a VPS from Linode.com [1] with a public IP for as little as $5/month, and set it up to run openSUSE. I've been using them for many years. -- Bob Rogers http://www.rgrjr.com/ [1] https://linode.com

On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 6:41 PM Karl Sinn wrote:

Am 01.12.22 um 11:54 schrieb Roger Oberholtzer:

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On Thu, Dec 1, 2022 at 7:59 AM Karl Sinn wrote:

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Hi,

I asked already but there was no answer.

Have you tried rustdesk?

just download the client on both machines, and connect. I missed that in all the answers. I have just now installed it on my computer to see what it does. I'm waiting for it to generate the ID. It just says generating... It says "Connecting to the RustDesk network..."

I see that this is an issue many have had. The suspicion is that a port is blocked.

I didn't have that problem in the same situation. If I remember right on github is a file which gives alternative servers, maybe one of them will help you.

When I try from home (no corporate IP stuff), I can now connect with RustDesk. That's great! So two systems, both with private IP address, are connected in the sense that I can access the remote desktop. Now I'm trying to get the file transfer part to work. Seems not to like the password. I'm using the same one I did for the desktop access. It says: "No active console user logged on, please connect and logon first." I am connected to the desktop. Does this mean that someone needs to be logged in to the console as well? That seems odd. -- Roger Oberholtzer

On 2022-11-29 15:56, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

A bit of a followup:

The client now has a public address in the router. I can ping it.

Next is to figure out getting stuff from the router to then target machine. They have some docs on port forwarding in the router. I have suggested that they set that up. I think it only needs to know the destination IP address of the target machine (which currently is set by the router to some 192 address). We want all ports to be forwarded.

No idea if they are capable of doing this. But it's in progress.

*All* ports? Really? that is atypical. Yes, that is putting the router in transparent mode. If you know the router model, you can find the instructions for it and tell them how to do it. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.4 x86_64 at Telcontar)