[Steve2000]

Let's see if I can explain this.

Ok, so I've installed RealVNC servers on both of my home computers, an XP SP3 Desktop and a Vista SP1 Laptop (that may as well be a desktop as it never moves). I've figured out how to access each of these computers from the other one over the LAN using their individual IP adresses . RealVNC informs me though, that because these computers are behind a NAT router, in order to access them over the internet I will have to point the VNC viewer at my router and forward port 5900 to my computer. I set this up for my laptop by telling my D-Link DIR-625, under the Port Forwarding tab, that the program is RealVNC, the port I need forwarded is 5900 and the IP for my Laptop is xxx.xxx.x.xxx. It worked. I can now access my laptop from anywhere on the net. My problem is that when I try to do the same thing for my desktop I tell the router that the program is RealVNC the port is 5900 and the IP is xxx.xxx.x.xxx and the router tells me that the program name RealVNC has already been used.

I would be much obliged if someone could tell me how I can set up my wireless router so that I have the option of choosing which one of my computers I can control remotely.

Thank you in advance.

[hermes]

How many internet facing IP addresses do you have? If you only have 1, then you can only map 1 internal PC.

What you are doing is telling the router to accept incoming traffic to your internet facing address on port 5900. You are then telling it to forward traffic that arrives at your internet address on port 5900 to an internal IP address on the same port. If you have a single IP address it can only map an individual port to a single internal address.

You would need to ask your ISP for a block of IP addresses to map more than one internal machine on the same port. For two internal IP addresses you will need a block of 4 addresses (2 workable - 2 for broadcast and network).

If you have a consumer broadband connection you may have to pay for and justify a request for additional IP addresses.

Alternatively, can you configure VNC to use a different port? If so, set it up to connect on 5900 for 1 PC and a different port for the other.

[Steve2000]

Thank you for your help. I had a feeling you were going to say something like that. I'll try my other computer with port 5901 unless you can suggest a better port.

[JohnWill]

If you look at the VNC docs, they mention that screen 0 is port 5900, screen 1 is port 5901, etc.

[Steve2000]

I didn't see it in the documentation but I've got it working now. I used 5901 for the second computer and it still didn't work but then I found out that I have to configure the second computer's VNC server to accept connections on port 5901 instead of the default 5900.