In this particular case, the IP address is 147.100.100.27. If you look closely at Figure A, you’ll notice that there is an IP address embedded in the XML file. The user who needs help would then follow the prompts and send you a request for remote assistance, either through e-mail or through an instant message.Īlthough the invitation usually arrives in the form of an e-Mail or instant message, the invitation itself consists of an XML file. The user who needs remote assistance would click the Start button, select the Help and Support Option, and would then click the Invite A Friend To Connect To Your Computer With Remote Assistance. If the user isn’t very knowledgeable about computers, the necessary tweaking might be over their heads and you might find yourself having to provide remote assistance in person after all. However, doing so requires a little bit of tweaking by your user.
REMOTE ASSISTANT FIREWALL WINDOWS
Tweaking NATĪlthough Windows doesn’t natively support NAT traversal for remote assistance sessions, there is a way that you can provide remote assistance to someone who is behind a NAT firewall. The address is not accessible from the Internet, which means that you can’t attach to the machine through a remote assistance session. Unfortunately, this is a bogus IP address that exists only on the user’s private network. If the user were to send you a remote assistance invitation, it would attempt to connect your computer to 192.168.1.6. For instance, let’s say that the computer that a home-based user needs help with has an IP address of 192.168.1.6. Secondly, even if the person’s NAT firewall were configured to allow remote assistance related traffic, the entire concept of NAT causes some problems. This includes packets used for remote assistance. Firewalls are designed to block any unauthorized types of packets.
While a NAT Firewall box does provide NAT services, it is first and foremost a firewall. First, think about the name NAT Firewall. So why is using NAT such a big problem for someone who is trying to provide or receive remote assistance? Well, there are a couple of reasons. The NAT firewall receives the request and then forwards it to the appropriate bogus IP address on the private network. When the Web site replies to the request, the reply is sent to the NAT firewall. In doing so, the request appears to have come from the network’s one legitimate IP address. When someone needs to access the Internet, the request is sent to the NAT firewall, and it makes the request to the Web site on behalf of the user. NAT allows you to create an entire network of bogus IP addresses. Since your typical ISP only assigns you a single IP address, if you have more than one computer, then you will need multiple IP addresses. However, this particular friend was using a Network Address Translation (NAT) firewall. Remote assistance is a handy feature, and I have used it on more than one occasion to help out other friends. To save myself some time and wear and tear on my car, I introduced my friend to Windows XP’s remote assistance feature. Although I really don’t mind helping friends, this particular person lives over an hour away from me so it’s kind of a pain to have to make that long drive every time that my friend needs help. To make a long story short, in the months since this repair, my friend has called me over a dozen times to fix all sorts of minor problems. The damage was so extensive that I had no choice but to reformat the machine and load Windows XP and all of his applications from scratch.
A closer examination revealed that the machine was infested with viruses and Trojans. Several months ago, a friend called me because his son had crashed his computer. Even so, I have always been one to help out a friend in need.
REMOTE ASSISTANT FIREWALL PC
Several years ago I gave up computer support because once I touched someone’s PC for the first time, I usually got blamed for anything else that goes wrong after that, even if it isn’t related to what I did.
This article was originally published on May 13, 2004. This article is also available as a TechRepublic download. Learn to use port forwarding to get around a NAT firewall when using Microsoft Windows XP's remote assistance feature. How do I… Provide remote assistance on computers behind a NAT device?
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