[the_hangman]

I have an application that uses IP's to connect to other computers. If I were to connect to a computer on a network how would I go about determining that individual computer.

for instance if I was at home on my computer and I wanted to connect to a computer that was in my office, which goes through the gateway and then to the individual PC, what IP would I use?

part 2 questions. How do I save, or determine the IP of someone that was, say, using AOL who has a variable IP that is diff on each login?

[max302]

What i do is that I configure ports to go with each computer. For instance, my ip on port 5900 forwards to my laptop, which I most frequently use for VNC connections, while the port 5901 forwards to LAGGBOXX, the upstairs box used by my sister mostly. I you want to be doing this at work, consult your local IT guy. Try to use upper ports, as they are less used, while ports 200 and below are used a lot.

[Thorian]

You would have to establish a VPN

Guranteed that your local lan is using a 192.x.x.x ip address along with every other home network out there. so unless you have port forwarding on the router at home

As far as work with out a VPN you will probally not be able to get in. Unless you use something like gotomypc

[the_hangman]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I don't know anything about this stuff...

The app that I have has a P2P style connection. For instance if I use a P2P app on this computer (one of the ones at work on a network) obviously there is something that distinctly connects my computer to another...

I guess my question is, what exactly is that distinct thing? (I figured it was a combination of IP's and ports and stuff. Like I said I know nothing about this, sorry if I'm being dumb)

For instance if I go to something like myipaddress.com it gives me the IP of the gateway is that the right term?).
but i can't use 6x.2x.8x.2x because all 200 computers would have that same thing.

[MarkoDaGeek]

Yeah, but if you use port forwarding, say 62.xxx.xxx.xxx:2500, it will go to the machine the port is forwarded to.

[the_hangman]

Oh i get it! I think.

My app picks a port to build a data stream on (let's say 1001). Could I (or should I) issue a constant port to use in connecting 2 computers? that way there would be no confusion as to where it's being forwarded?

say, PC1 and PC2 always use :1001 to connect; but PC1 and PC3 always use :1002?

The result being when each PC loaded the program, a listener on both PC's would listen at the same port for a connection request

[MarkoDaGeek]

Yeah, that should work fine. Most software using a technology like that run on pre-determined or user-determined port settings as it is.