I'm attempting to control a work PC over a VPN connection. The PC I'm trying to conenct from is on a SOHO intranet behind a router. I clearly got through as there was a message on the work PC that it rejected the IP address, which I duly added to remote_hosts.cfg. I also set a password. I then restarted the BOINC service on the work PC (using sysinternals psservice). However when I tried to connect again, I was told that the password was incorrect. I think - but am not sure - that I managed to connect the second time. I certainly didn't get a "connection failed" error message.

Could it be that the IP address which the work PC received was that of my local router rather than tie PC I was trying to connect from? Or is there some other explanation? If it's the router IP address, does this mean that I won't be able to control this PC remotely?

I'm asking because the work PC has deferred communication with the server for a week (due to ongoing problems with a proxy which have now been fixed) - but by then all of the queued results will have expired. Hence I really need to update the project.

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I should have added that both PCs run 2000 Professional. The work PC is running BOINC 4.25, and my local PC is running 5.2.5.

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I suggest to update the remote client to a newer version just like your local client - does 4.25 has the password authentication actually?
As you have already set a password in gui_rpc_auth.cfg, you could start the remote client with parameter "-allow_remote_gui_rpc". The IP check will be disabled and that will allow you to connect from everywhere without the need of knowing the address but the password.

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I suggest to update the remote client to a newer version just like your local client - does 4.25 has the password authentication actually?
As you have already set a password in gui_rpc_auth.cfg, you could start the remote client with parameter "-allow_remote_gui_rpc". The IP check will be disabled and that will allow you to connect from everywhere without the need of knowing the address but the password.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I'm not likely to get into work for some time, so I won't be able to update the software.

I assume that adding the parameter is just a matter of altering a registry value (it runs as a service). Unfortunately I can't see any way of doing this remotely. (I don't have fancy stuff like Carbon Copy.) Neither can the people on the sysinternals forum where I posted this question either.

So unless I can physically get in there it looks as though I am checkmated on this one. Unless of course somebody knows better...

Brian

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Unfortunately I'm not likely to get into work for some time, so I won't be able to update the software.

You can TRY using BOINCView to attach to work instead of BOINC Manager. I don't know if that will make any difference, but it seems to work "locally" for multiple Windows computers regardless of BOINC versions... (I only have one PC, rest are Macs, so I haven't used it much.)

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Unfortunately I'm not likely to get into work for some time, so I won't be able to update the software.

You can TRY using BOINCView to attach to work instead of BOINC Manager. I don't know if that will make any difference, but it seems to work "locally" for multiple Windows computers regardless of BOINC versions... (I only have one PC, rest are Macs, so I haven't used it much.)

A successful outcome. Thanks to the SysInternals forum I found out about reg.exe, and was able to add the -allow_remote_gui_rpc parameter to the service startup parameters. I then restarted it and was able to update the project using BoincView - although a firewall somewhere seems to be blocking my access using port 1043, so I had to do it via direct network access.

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