Connecting Mac to VPN server securely and for free

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Connecting Mac to VPN server securely and for free

I would like to set up a VNC connection between several machines. Primarilly having a Mac as a client and Windows as a server. The task is to be able to control windows machines using VNC/remote desktop protocols but to have it for free (opensource client and server) and secure (encrypted channel).

There are several commercial possibilities, e.g. RealVNC. It does this and having both client and server from RealVNC enables encryption on the channel. Unfortunatelly RealVNC is not for free. In the opensource space I cannot find similar combination. There are several Mac clients, but only few support encryption (via different ways). There are several win servers, but few support encryption AND are compatible with the clients. At the end of the day I am (yet) unable to have a Win server and a Mac client connected together using encrypted channel. Insecurely it is ok. There are several possible variants to do it and they work fine.

Have anybody dealt with a similar problem and found a solution? It would be appreciated if the one can share which combination won.

There is a way of using VPN and tunnel VNC via it. But this requires additional infrastructure (keys, servers, clients, etc.) in order to work. Looking for a simpler variant first.

Thanks

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jan 16, 2013 2:31 AM

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Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

53,003 points

Jan 16, 2013 4:29 AM in response to Magovec

Hamachi (free for personal use) from LogMeIn.com

It is cross platform and creates a VPN network between all the systems you setup.

You can then use any VNC or RDC software you like.

Since you are going Mac to Windows, I would suggests CoRD, an open source RDC client it is very good. I use it all the time at work.

If you want to stick with VNC, then any Mac client will work (Chicken, free RealVNC client, etc…) over Hamachi, even the built in Mac OS X Finder -> Go -> Connect to server -> vnc://windows.address.over.hanachi

As an alternate encrypted screen sharing method, you could look at TeamViewer.com (free for personal use), and LogMeIn.com (free for personal use) which both provide encrypted screen sharing across the Internet without needing a VPN. I lean towards TeamViewer.com as I think the Mac client side performs better than LogMeIn JavaScript browser client.

I might suggest having TeamViewer or LogMeIn as a backup, in case there are issues with the primary.

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