Help with remote connectivity (desktop sharing)

[da burger]

I could well be wrong but if you use only an external ip it will connect to the router. I think you need to use port forwarding or something of the like to get around this.
Angus

[fly-by-night]

You should not advertise the IP address here - in my opinion. You've never done this before and your folks will have NO clue who is connected to their computer. Might be you, might be Jack from down under...

Then again I have never attempted this either so...is advertising it safe?

[acreech]

You should not advertise the IP address here - in my opinion. You've never done this before and your folks will have NO clue who is connected to their computer. Might be you, might be Jack from down under...

Then again I have never attempted this either so...is advertising it safe?

I would think that is not safe. it is usually blocked out in x's

[da burger]

Your IP is not secret. Every time you connect to a web site it gets your IP. Having said that I would not advise that you shout it out on a thread where you are talking about opening up a port for remote access.

The security in these kind of connections should come from things like password authentication, or at least blocking all but the IPs you know should be connecting.

Please feel free to correct me if I've got something wrong as this is not my area of expertise. (I love how that makes it sound like I've got an area of expertise)

Angus

[duruttye]

I would think that is not safe. it is usually blocked out in x's

Yes, I know, it isn't the real address
But thank for the headsup

Anyway, they (my parents) ran out of patience, so am I...

This should be an easy task, I think, if not, it shouldn't be included in the distro, I think

Anyway, thank you for your help.

And just in case someone comes across this thread, I would like a command for my parents to put in the terminal, and some advice on accessing their pc.

thank you all

[CharlesA]

It's an invalid IP address anyway. You can't have any octet greater then 255.

Try to ssh to localhost and see what happens.

Could be that the port isn't forwarded on the router or the isp is blocking port 22.

[lisati]

It's not a real IPV4 address.

I could well be wrong but if you use only an external ip it will connect to the router. I think you need to use port forwarding or something of the like to get around this.
Angus

The "timed out" error is what I'd expect too if port forwarding wasn't set up correctly.

Another possibility is that the OPs parents have a dynamic IP address that has changed since someone last looked.

[CharlesA]

Instead of opening SSH to the internet. I would suggest using something like TeamViewer to view their desktop.

It's encrypted like SSH but it isn't open to the internet.

[fly-by-night]

This thread got me back on the remote desktop track, thanks everyone. I gave up since it looked too risky. I'm very paranoid, but Teamviewer seems like it can simplify everything.

An appropriate title will be a bonus (edit: for this thread).

[CharlesA]

Changed the thread title to be more descriptive.