Networking: Remote Desktop Connections

What is it?

Remote Desktop Connections are beginning to be a technology that more and more people use as a means of getting work done, recreation and networking. There are multitudes of companies and software’s that advertise remote control of a PC or remote login to the PC.

Pro's

Con's

what needs to be done!

1. Establish a VPN connection

2. Enable Remote Connections on your PC

3. Connect Remotely!

VPN Connection

Enabling Connections

CONNECT!

You can do this two ways.

1. go to the run prompt and type "mstsc"

2. Find remote desktop connection in your accessories folder.

Remote Desktop Connections

How to Guide!

You need to be an administrator on your machine in orer to do this!

The remote desktop tool is the software standard on most windows operating systems. This software is the feature that allows graphical applications to be run remotely on a server, while being displayed locally. Basically as stated above it will allow one computer to control a host computer and the controlling computer will act as the host computer.

Explanation:

When it works the controlling computer displays the host computer’s image received from the host computer's display screen. The image on the controlling computer is updated on a timed interval, or in real-time when a change on screen is noticed by the remote desktop software. The remote desktop software on the controlling computer transmits its own keyboard and mouse activity to the host computer, where the remote desktop software implements these actions. The host computer then behaves as if the actions were performed directly at that computer.

Now I’m going to get into a little bit of the technical side of the remote desktop connection. In order to establish a remote desktop connection you first need to establish a VPN connection. A VPN or virtual private network is a computer network that is layered on top of an underlying computer network. The private nature of a VPN means that the data travelling over the VPN is not generally visible to, or is encapsulated from, the underlying network traffic.

A VPN connection can be thought of as a "pipe within a pipe", with the outer pipe being the underlying network connection and the pipe within being the VPN.

There are two main types of VPN’s. The first is a secure VPN and the second is a Trusted VPN. Secure VPNs may be implemented by organizations wishing to provide remote desktop access to their employees or by organizations wishing to connect multiple networks together securely using the Internet to carry the traffic. A common use for secure VPNs is in remote desktop scenarios, where VPN client software on an end user system is used to connect to a remote office network securely. Secure VPN protocols include IPSec, L2TP (with IPSec for traffic encryption), SSL/TLS VPN (with SSL/TLS) or PPTP (with MPPE).

Trusted VPNs differ from secure VPNs in that they do not provide security features such as data confidentiality through encryption. Secure VPNs however do not offer the level of control of the data flows that a trusted VPN can provide such as bandwidth guarantees or routing.

Some networks will block out VPN connections thus not allowing a user to be able to remote to there computers. In this case you need to consider back up options to get access to your files. I have seen this problem in public Wi-Fi areas. Most recently and most often Wi-Fi networks at Airports.

Pros & Cons...

An advantage of remote desktop connections is that you don’t have to spend time copying data to disks, a USB, or CD-RWs

A drawback is the fact that the computer you will be remote accessing whether it be your home, business or any other PC will have to be left running and connected to the internet while you are gone, which will likely increase your electric bill.

Remote desktop connections are also good

for technical support, education, and working out

of the office.Remote desktop access makes life easier for any computer user. Data and applications on your home or business desktop computer can become available from a laptop or other internet-connected computers located elsewhere. This is convenient if you frequently travel or spend time away from home or work.

Some networks do not allow remote

connections do to security reasons which

I'll get into later.

Overall, using remote desktop connections are a good choice if you need to access both data and specific applications on another computer, but other less expensive options with fewer technical requirements shouldn’t be overlooked.