I have a VNC server running on my Linux server at home (tcp 5900). I can access it from various remote sites, but not from work. I can however access my FTP site (same system) from work. This system is also the firewall and router (no hardware appliance in the way).

I'm thinking about just moving VNC to a different port, but I've never experienced this before and would like to understand it better. Can someone explain to me the best way to research this and possible work arounds? I did try telneting to port 5900 and it timed out.

Thanks!

If you're accessing VNC from remote locations you do NOT want to be doing so directly. VNC has absolutely no security whatsoever, so all your traffic could easily be monitored.

What you do want to do is tunnel the VNC port through an SSH connection. There are loads of threads here on how to do this.

Just be aware that your system admins at work may take a very dim view of you accessing a home computer from work, and given your description, it seems likely that they are actively trying to prevent people from doing what you're trying to do. Depending on where you work, circumventing network security can be grounds for termination.

Thanks for the information, I will look into tunneling through SSH.
As for work not taking kindly, that's probably good advise, i'll check with the sysadmins. Though they didn't have any problem with me accessing my FTP site to get old source code I'd written.

-Nathan

another option that may or may not work would be to use hamachi
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/list.asp

Ok so I found a small article on how to tunnel SSH through putty (work system is winxp) it seems straightforward enough:
http://www.maths.utas.edu.au/People/Hill/vnc/vnc.html

My config is now setup just like theirs however I get a Connection Closed Dialogue the second I hit connect in tightvnc viewer to localhost:5900
I ssh'd into my linux server at home just to make sure vnc is running and nmap shows that it is and on 5900. Question, the article has my forwarding the port from 5900 to 5953, what is the purpose of that? I don't actually have that port in use.

PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open http
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
631/tcp open ipp
5900/tcp open vnc

Ok I answered my own question disregard, I just changed the destination port from 5953 to 5900 and it came right up! Thanks for the pointers and help everyone.