Using ARD without static IP's & Non-Tech users

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Level 1

2 points

Using ARD without static IP's & Non-Tech users

For thank you for your answers. I just received my new bill for my Logmein subscription and so I'm looking for a new solution and was wondering if ARD would work for work situation. I support people around the US who are not very technical - nice thing about logemin is I loaded the client and then I could connect to them regardless of where they are. Looking through the documentation it hints that it might be able to do this but I'm not quite sure.

Thank you

MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Jan 6, 2016 12:33 PM

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Answer 1

cdhw

Level 4

3,588 points

Jan 8, 2016 1:57 PM in response to JPLyman325

Depends on how they are connected to you. Via a VPN I'd expect it to work just fine. Via a consumer-grade ISP probably not. The ports ARD needs open are listed here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202944

You might find that Apple's 'Back to My Mac' system:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204618

can replace Logmein in your circumstances.

Depending on what type of 'support' you are providing and to whom, it could be an advantage that clients that they have to login to your VPN before you can see their machine.

C.

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Answer 2

Jan 8, 2016 3:56 PM in response to JPLyman325

Here are some of the alternatives to LogMeIn: http://alternativeto.net/software/logmein/

Mechanisms such as ARD, Screen Sharing, VNC and RDP will all be blocked by the (properly-configured) firewalls of more than a few folks.

iChat / Messages screen sharing — where that's not broken — might provide an alternative, or you can potentially provide folks with a tool that'll open the necessary ports. (A script or a tool that performs something such as an ssh from their system to your server can be used to open up a return port for ARD or Screen Sharing, for instance.)

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