Outbound Only Connections

[martin.webb.1694]

Hello everybody,

I have decided to start working on an application for my customers which will allow me to maintain their computers remotely using VNC. I currently have a very basic VNC system which I plan to customize for my own use (All in C#).

The problem I now face is that for my customer, having to set up port forwarding on their router is not desirable and in most cases very impractical as the very nature of my customer base is to not have a very good working knowledge of anything computer related beyond basic usage.

UPnP is not a viable option as my customers all likely have UPnP off by default and going around to each customer before allowing remote access is not an option (very costly!).

My main thought is having outbound only connections server-side and using my client-side as a listener, therefore bypassing any need for port forwarding and should give my customers a "zero config" style service.

Just looking for thoughts or ideas on how to impliment this best and any design ideas that may be of interest. Anybody worked on this type of thing before?

Thanks.

[Wil 0' Wisp]

The security issues on that are going to be fun, you appear to be proposing that the client 'broadcasts' almost out and you are the only person capable of picking up that broadcast... Unless you are going to setup a ticket/verification token? I currently use an rdc to get into a couple of sites to the 'server' then use VNC from there. Doubtful they are they using VPN's tht might be the other way around it. The latest version of VNC appear to have a client installable side but I have never got that to work. This may not help just adding a smal few view. I 'd love to see it work to get around the log- me-in thing unless you can adopt a similar kind of model to get access?