looking for a startup guide

I've searched for startup guides, but I can't seem to find one simple
enough for me to follow.

Could someone help me to find a good guide?

My situation:

1 Macbook
1 Airport Express
1 XP Pro
When I do a what is my IP search I get the same one always:
AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD

I can connect to my PC when on the local network, but I can't when I'm
away from home. I know (think?) i need to configure my express to do
port forwarding but after that i'm not clear on what to enter in the
fields:

Public UDP
Public TCP
Private IP address (I connect to 10.0.1.EEE when i RDC locally)
Private UDP
Private UDP

What (if any) additional firewall exceptions need to be on the PC?

Recommendations for security?

Thank you all!

Eat411 wrote:

> I can connect to my PC when on the local network, but I can't when I'm
> away from home. I know (think?) i need to configure my express to do
> port forwarding but after that i'm not clear on what to enter in the
> fields:

Absolutely correct. You need to port forward all incoming traffic on TCP
3389 to your Windows computer.

> What (if any) additional firewall exceptions need to be on the PC?
>
> Recommendations for security?
>
> Thank you all!

By using Network Address Translation (NAT) to connect your home network
to the Internet (you're already doing this) you've essentially put up a
firewall. Nothing can get in.

By opening port 3389 you'll be "punching a hole" in your firewall. So
long as you selectively decide which holes to punch and ensure you've
enabled security on your inside computers (password protection) then you
should be reasonably safe.

I don't know if the Express has the option to not respond to "pings" but
if it does then I suggest you enable that as well. Only you need to know
your IP address is active. Others might use pings to find a responsive
address and then begin port scanning (finding port 3389) and attempt to
hack. This is where a good (read that "looooong") password is ideal.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

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