Rookie2008
Level 1
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I have my imac at home with static IP adress.
How do I control it over internet when I am away?
Thanks,
Bharat
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2)
Q: how to remote access my imac on static IP
It is extremely easy. Set up and use Back to My Mac - Apple Support
That is what Back-to-My-Mac is going to give you. And to a certain extent TeamViewer.
Back-to-My-Mac allows you to Screen Share into your remote Mac and do anything there that you can do sitting at the remote Mac's keyboard except plug and unplug things.
Back-to-My-Mac will allow you to mount your remote Mac's file system and access it as a network storage device on the Mac you have with you.
Back-to-My-Mac should make your remote Mac appear as a clickable item in your Finder side-bar.
Back-to-My-Mac does NOT require any additional software. Everything you need is already in your 2 Macs.
TeamViewer (you do have to install it on both systems, and configure the remote system to accept unattended connections). Anyway, TeamViewer will allow you to access your remote Mac's screen and do anything remotely that you could do sitting that the remote Mac (again, except plug and unplug things).
TeamViewer has a way to transfer files between the 2 systems. It is not file sharing, so you could not access that remote files via one of your apps, but you could transfer the file to your local Mac and then access the duplicate local copy from your app.
TeamViewer is cross platform, and can be used on a Windows PC to access your Remote Mac. A Linux TeamViewer version is also available).
Both of these utilities are very good at doing remote Mac access. And they are about as easy as you are going to get.
I strongly suggest you look at Back-to-My-Mac first, as suggested by
You can also contact any Apple Store and ask them for help in setting up Back-to-My-Mac.
PS. Neither Back-to-My-Mac nor TeamViewer care if you have a static or dynamically assigned IP address. They can find your Mac via the services.
If you really want to use that static IP address, then you can start by going to <http://portforward.com/> and learning how to configure your home router so it will "Port Forward" the screen sharing port 5900 from the Internet to your Mac. And also Port forward the file sharing ports 548 (AFP), 137, 138, 139 and 445 (CIFS/SMB). Also remember to enable System Preferences -> Sharing -> Screen Sharing and File Sharing. Now from your local Mac you use Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server -> vnc://your.fixed.ip.address for screen sharing and afp://your.fixed.ip.address for Apple File Sharing (AFP) or smb://your.fixed.ip.address for CIFS/SMB based file sharing.
So much easier than Back-to-My-Mac and TeamViewer
Oh yea, Back-to-My-Mac and TeamViewer will use encrypted connections for everything.
However, opening ports to the internet via Port Forwarding will expose you to script kiddies trying to break into your system using the well known ports you have just opened. And the screen sharing and file sharing connections via the open ports will NOT be encrypted. So first make sure you have a very good password on all the accounts you have on your remote Mac.
Duane
