Question : Remote Assistance with Linksys wireless WRT54GC router

I am hoping someone can help me understand how to use the linksys web access form for the WRT54GC router to ennable remote access of my home computer.

My husband and I have 3 computers: 1 desktop and 2 laptops, all running WinXP pro.  We would like to have the ability to use remote assistance with all of these computers.  Yesterday, my husband tried to accept an invitation that I sent him to remotely assist my laptop with his laptop, but recieved an error: "remote assistance connection could not be established because the remote host name could not be resolved."  He was on a wireless network at work, and my laptop is connected via the wireless linksys modem, at home.

We do have firewalls ennabled (XP and McAfee), but I have gone through and configured the firewalls to be happy about remote assistance.  The problem seems to be with configuring the router.  

Unfortunately, all the suggestions that I have seen posted regarding port forwarding and hard coding ISP addresses don't seem to apply to the router interface that I have.  This is a new world for me, so if someone has insight to this router, I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks.

Answer : Remote Assistance with Linksys wireless WRT54GC router

In a nutshell, you have to:

1.) Open the port on the router
2.) Forward the port to an internal IP address
3.) Configure the target to be the internal address you're forwarding to.

When you forward the port inside the router, you will be "opening" the port externally.

So, on the target machine, you would configure the IP address to be static - so that it's NOT dynamically assigned.  You could assign it something outside your Dynamic scope (DHCP Scope).  Your Linksys scope probably starts at .100.  So, you could assign the target an address like 192.168.1.50 with a mask of 255.255.255.0 and the gateway address of 192.168.1.1.

Then, you would go into the router and forward whatever port you want to use remote control (3389 for microsoft remote desktop).  You would NOT want to do this except for a very limited time you need support.

Then, you would need to identify what your external IP address is - provided by your ISP.  From inside the home network, go to http://www.whatismyip.com.  This will give you the external IP - the one you would connect to with the remote control program.  Then, if the forwarding is right, the target is on the network with the right IP, and firewalls are configured correctly, you should be good.

Hope this helps.