[gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[Hilco Wijbenga]

Hi all,

I would like to do remote pair programming with somebody on a
non-Linux box. It seems that NoMachine NX or TightVNC would allow me
to do so. Great.

My problem is that I don't have a routable IP address. My ISP gives me
a 192.x.x.x IP which is sort of nice because the bad guys can't see me
... but neither can the good guys. :-) (On top of that I have my own
network with NAT set up so I can share my Internet connection among my
various machines.)

I do have root access to a (Debian) server with a static IP with a
hosting company. So now I'm wondering if I can somehow take advantage
of that static IP address. How would I do that? What would I need to
set up on that server to allow my partner to reach my box?

Cheers,
Hilco

Re: [gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[Alex Schuster]

Hilco Wijbenga writes:

> I would like to do remote pair programming with somebody on a
> non-Linux box. It seems that NoMachine NX or TightVNC would allow me
> to do so. Great.

I prefer NX over VNC because of its efficiency, and because it is more
intelligent, but I think it has no mode to let two people access the
same session at once. So I (being remote) tried starting a session with
NX, running KDE, which has a VNC feature, so the other person (with the
session runnin in his fast LAN) could attach via VNC. But tit did not
work well due some color bug.

> My problem is that I don't have a routable IP address. My ISP gives me
> a 192.x.x.x IP which is sort of nice because the bad guys can't see me
> ... but neither can the good guys. :-) (On top of that I have my own
> network with NAT set up so I can share my Internet connection among my
> various machines.)
> 
> I do have root access to a (Debian) server with a static IP with a
> hosting company. So now I'm wondering if I can somehow take advantage
> of that static IP address. How would I do that? What would I need to
> set up on that server to allow my partner to reach my box?

Setting a forward route with iptables would be the standard idea I'd
think. But I'd probably just set up an SSH tunnel, like this:

ssh -R :5900:localhost:5900 debian-server

So when someone connects to port 5900 on the debian server, the traffic
is forwarded to port 5900 on your machine, which would run the VNC
session. If the session should run on the non-linux guy's PC, he should
start the tunnel using putty or something. See the ssh man page and the
-R option.

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On 22 July 2010 16:08, Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> wrote:
> Hilco Wijbenga writes:
>
>> I would like to do remote pair programming with somebody on a
>> non-Linux box. It seems that NoMachine NX or TightVNC would allow me
>> to do so. Great.
>
> I prefer NX over VNC because of its efficiency, and because it is more
> intelligent, but I think it has no mode to let two people access the
> same session at once. So I (being remote) tried starting a session with
> NX, running KDE, which has a VNC feature, so the other person (with the
> session runnin in his fast LAN) could attach via VNC. But tit did not
> work well due some color bug.

Mmmh, that's disappointing. Would you mind having a look at
http://www.nomachine.com/products.php "NX Free Edition"? That gave me
the impression it was exactly what I was looking for.

>> My problem is that I don't have a routable IP address. My ISP gives me
>> a 192.x.x.x IP which is sort of nice because the bad guys can't see me
>> ... but neither can the good guys. :-) (On top of that I have my own
>> network with NAT set up so I can share my Internet connection among my
>> various machines.)
>>
>> I do have root access to a (Debian) server with a static IP with a
>> hosting company. So now I'm wondering if I can somehow take advantage
>> of that static IP address. How would I do that? What would I need to
>> set up on that server to allow my partner to reach my box?
>
> Setting a forward route with iptables would be the standard idea I'd
> think. But I'd probably just set up an SSH tunnel, like this:
>
> ssh -R :5900:localhost:5900 debian-server
>
> So when someone connects to port 5900 on the debian server, the traffic
> is forwarded to port 5900 on your machine, which would run the VNC
> session. If the session should run on the non-linux guy's PC, he should
> start the tunnel using putty or something. See the ssh man page and the
> -R option.

Awesome, that's very simple.

Re: [gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[Alex Schuster]

Hilco Wijbenga writes:

> On 22 July 2010 16:08, Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> wrote:

> > I prefer NX over VNC because of its efficiency, and because it is
> > more intelligent, but I think it has no mode to let two people
> > access the same session at once. So I (being remote) tried starting
> > a session with NX, running KDE, which has a VNC feature, so the
> > other person (with the session runnin in his fast LAN) could attach
> > via VNC. But tit did not work well due some color bug.
> 
> Mmmh, that's disappointing. Would you mind having a look at
> http://www.nomachine.com/products.php "NX Free Edition"? That gave me
> the impression it was exactly what I was looking for.

Forget what I said. It does indees seem to be possible, now that I google 
for it. It's called shadowing, I have to try this out. So I'd say, use NX, 
or one of the varieties. I'd choose net-misc/nxserver-freeedition, it's 
free for up to two people, and said to be most reliable. Although I 
sometimes have different problems.
There's also FreeNX which I used most often, but it is no longer under 
development. x2go is the replacement, but does not yet have all the 
features. And neatx is the google variant, did not try this out much yet.

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[William Kenworthy]

Openvpn tunnel - treat the endpoints as a network connecting the two of
you.  If one end is public, connect direct (easier), or use your server
as a server and the ends as clients and route between at the server end
- can be fun (not) to get to work :)

Zebedee is a port based tunnel when only a single (or a few) ports needs
tunneling between two end points - designed originally for vnc type
connections and works great over low bandwidth and poor quality
connections.

ssh tunnel - similar to zebedee but Ive found it flakey and unreliable
with anything other than a good connection between two end points, far
prefer zebedee for this, but ssh is on almost everything by default
these days.

Start googling!

BillK

On Thu, 2010-07-22 at 15:47 -0700, Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I would like to do remote pair programming with somebody on a
> non-Linux box. It seems that NoMachine NX or TightVNC would allow me
> to do so. Great.
> 
> My problem is that I don't have a routable IP address. My ISP gives me
> a 192.x.x.x IP which is sort of nice because the bad guys can't see me
> ... but neither can the good guys. :-) (On top of that I have my own
> network with NAT set up so I can share my Internet connection among my
> various machines.)
> 
> I do have root access to a (Debian) server with a static IP with a
> hosting company. So now I'm wondering if I can somehow take advantage
> of that static IP address. How would I do that? What would I need to
> set up on that server to allow my partner to reach my box?
> 
> Cheers,
> Hilco
> 

-- 
William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au>
Home in Perth!

Re: [gentoo-user] Pair Programming & Non-Routable IP Address

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On 22 July 2010 16:20, William Kenworthy <billk@iinet.net.au> wrote:
> Zebedee is a port based tunnel when only a single (or a few) ports needs
> tunneling between two end points - designed originally for vnc type
> connections and works great over low bandwidth and poor quality
> connections.
>
> ssh tunnel - similar to zebedee but Ive found it flakey and unreliable
> with anything other than a good connection between two end points, far
> prefer zebedee for this, but ssh is on almost everything by default
> these days.

I finally got a simple variation working with SSH. I have a web app
running on localhost:8080 which I can now access on my.server.com:8080
by executing (on localhost):

ssh  -f  -N  -q  -R  my.server.com:8080:localhost:8080  my.server.com

I can't figure out how to do this with zebedee, though. I think it
must be some combination of "listenmode" and "clientmode" but I can't
seem to come up with the right sequence of commands.

Any pointers?