Comments on: Remote Desktop through SSH with PuTTY and Tomato firmware

By: Dominic

Dominic — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 06:04:01 +0000

Worked like a charm. Thanks!

By: Wizz

Wizz — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:58:05 +0000

Why tunneling? RDP already Has 128 bit Rc4 encryption (since ver 6)
Tunneling would be an overkill imo.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:10:40 +0000

Just a note for those whose router’s web IP address changes from time to time (i.e. dynamic). You can register with a free DNS service (search for Dynamic DNS) who will give you a fixed host name, e.g. myhouse.dnsservice.com which is mapped to your present IP address. Of course, your router or host computer needs to inform them of your new IP whenever it changes.
My router has a function for doing this (Tomato software with Victek mod), but if yours doesn’t the DNS service will give you an app for your host computer that will do the same job.

So in PuTTY instead of entering your router’s IP address you enter myhouse.dnsservice.com

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:23:14 +0000

Just to say that I followed your tutorial carefully and it worked first time. This was rather a pleasant surprise as I had been unable to get remote desktop working in the traditional way.

My system: Win7 Ult –> Tomato (Victek) router –> XP Pro

Thanks

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:44:23 +0000

I can’t get it to work. I can SSH into my router but remote desktop isn’t working. I’ve tried localhost:15338 (local port) and I get Remote Desktop cannot connect after a few seconds. remote desktop is enabled on the other machine (windows 7).

By: Kristy

Kristy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:59:39 +0000

I can't get it to work. I tried for a long time but I just could not get it right. I did get a connection up in just a few minutes using a demo of remote desktop software I stumbled upon. Why are third parties able to solve these issues so easily while MS just stumbles and fails?

By: GoBlog » SSH Tunnelling for Remote Desktop and SOCKS Proxy

GoBlog » SSH Tunnelling for Remote Desktop and SOCKS Proxy — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 10:03:35 +0000

[...] Rather than trying to explain it myself, there are already some nice explanations on the purpose of SSH Tunnelling and how to do it. [...]

By: alfred

alfred — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 22:14:27 +0000

worked great! thanks.

By: Hua

Hua — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 05:02:43 +0000

I have been trying to get some helps regarding the router’s port. I have set up a DDNS, and like to have access to the router’s port 5070. Is it any way to open the port? Please help me!

Thanks a lot.

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:30:36 +0000

It took me a little while, but I figured it out. Had some issues getting my router configured properly. But now it works! Thanks so much, your instructions were awesome.

By: java

java — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:19:43 +0000

You are awesome. It worked like a charm. Initially I ran into some issues where I have been getting connection timeout at putty session since my vonage phone adapter was directly connected to cable modem and my router was behind the phone adapter. I changed the configuration and made my phone adapter behind the router/firewall. My router is now directly connected to cable modem.

By: ratchet

ratchet — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:00:10 +0000

Thank you so much for correcting my carelessness! I’d entered that script weeks ago and forgot what all it entailed and just pasted it here.

By: Pascal

Pascal — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:03:04 +0000

Done. I usually edit posts to replace public IP addresses and MAC addresses with fake when I notice…

By: ratchet

ratchet — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:21:21 +0000

Pascal, I haven’t tried this yet, but I will hopefully tomorrow. I woke up and remembered something, in the meantime, could you kindly hide my MAC in my post above. I realize without an IP it’s benign but it is kind of the principal of the thing.

By: Pascal

Pascal — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:16:59 +0000

You cannot easily permanently write data on the file system of the router. The home folder is in RAM. So the init script is just there to generate the file with your mac address so you don’t have to remember. The init script is permanently saved on the router’s flash somewhere.

the magic packet is sent at the moment you execute sh wakeup-mycomputer.sh. There is no automation.

If you configure SSH tunnels, you do not need to enable port forward because the communication will be “tunneled” through the SSH connection up to your LAN.

Pascal.

By: ratchet

ratchet — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:49:40 +0000

Thank you for the response. You are the master! OK, so this is where I’m confused:
1. In the Initialization script of the firmware (Administration / Scripts / Init tab), type this:
echo “/usr/bin/ether-wake 01:02:03:04:05:06″ > /tmp/home/root/wakeup-mycomputer.sh
(change 01:02:03:04:05:06 to the mac address of the computer you want to wake-up)
2. Save and reboot the router, you should see the file “wakeup-mycomputer.sh” appear in the root home directory when you connect using SSH.
3. Try it “sh wakeup-mycomputer.sh”
When/if I log in remotely to the router, what must I do, or will it auto start to wake the desktop? Secondly, do I still need to port forward? If I do, for security reasons, I could just enable the forwarding after I’m connected to the router and then initiate wake. Would this work and how would I do that? I test this these things using Hotspot Shield, a free VPN. Again, thank you for your time!

By: Pascal

Pascal — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:13:36 +0000

Yes I remember! Welcome back

I guess to make my opened SSH port more secured would be to use key files which are more secure by nature than an simple password. If we could (I need to verify) force both password and keyfile that would be even more interesting.

Pascal.

By: ratchet

ratchet — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:21:21 +0000

Pascal, don’t know if you remember me or not, however, on your “Tomato Firmware: Remote Desktop Through SSH, using W-O-L and …” blog we had communicated about the inability to broadcast an address using a WRT54GS router.
I was able to resolve that issue using this script and Tomato: sleep 5
ip neigh change 192.168.1.254 lladdr 01:02:03:04:05:06 nud permanent dev br0
ip neigh add 192.168.1.254 lladdr 01:02:03:04:05:06 nud permanent dev br0
The magic packet and that script work perfectly, the only down side is leaving a port open. I found the “SSH Wake” directions a little confusing, however, the directions in this “how to”, especially with the screenshots are great. All I want to do is wake the desktop with my laptop when visiting my children. I would then use TeamViewer (http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx). What do I amend in these directions to only securely wake the desktop? Thank You!

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:01:19 +0000

Will this work with rdp remote sound?

By: Pascal

Pascal — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:22:48 +0000

Thanks Tom!