Remote Access

[enjay]

We're moving away from RM CC3 this summer and going vanilla 2008/Win7, and will need to get some form of remote access in place.

At present, people are either using RM's innacurately named EasyLink or are using an FTP client to connect to the web folders created by EasyLink. I would be happy enough to continue with the FTP process on Server 2008, although think it worth looking for alternatives. That said, I don't want to put too much time or money into this, as whatever I do now will likely be obsoleted by our VLE when that goes live, however we do need something in the interim.

So, what do you folks do for remote access?

[cpjitservices]

VPN, TeamViewer (TeamViewer - Free Remote Access and Remote Desktop Sharing over the Internet) mostly it has file transfer also - Use also FTP - as for VLE's use we had Moodle it's free

[enjay]

Moodle is not free, but thanks for the link to TeamViewer - from the web site, it looks more like a support tool rather than something which teachers and students could use to access files from home though...

[Brpilot99]

"Moodle is not free"

Thats interesting !! Ive just downloaded Moodle and installed it here and not paid anything for it .. Is there something Ive missed?

[strawberry]

Moodle is mostly free, no initial payment and no subs or support costs.

As for remote access look at microsoft terminal services, You cna use web access to create a webpage then give access to programs or give access to explorer.exe so they can have a window with their mapped drives and the local drives from their own pc.

[cpjitservices]

Moodle IS free lol - sorry yeah Terminal Services would suit your needs better - but TV better for remote support

[enjay]

Moodle is free to buy but has a personnel cost associated with running it. Anyway, let's move on from that...

Terminal Services has quite a high overhead on server resources, doesn't it?

[enjay]

Primary interest is users accessing files from home, already using TightVNC for remote support.

That said, something which allows me to get a full remote logon session to the server would be useful for out-of-hours upgrades and the like - currently, all such apps are blocked by our ISP, but we're about to move so I'll revisit. Does TV allow that, or does it need someone physically at the server to grant it permission first?

[cpjitservices]

nope TV doesnt need you to grant permission you just set a password when you install it onto your server. log on from the web console on teamviwer.com and click your server and login

[strawberry]

If you only want moodle for file access then there is very very little personnel cost, you set it up which takes about a day, setup a course and link it to your shared network drives. There is no easy way of setting it to use individual home folders without an smb box though.

the Ts question, Yes it does, but since webdav doesn't work past ie7 then the best way to access files is to logon on to the file server, so whatever you use will take up some resource.

[enjay]

Thanks strawberry, unfortunately home folder access is essential. I'll keep looking...

[Simcfc73]

How about Microsoft UAG, its a dog to configure, hard to administer and difficult to change the splash screens.

Whens its working its fine though, especially the remote apps.

Oh and its not free

[john]

How about Home Access+ from @nickbro on here? It has its own section inside the Edugeek Projects area