Installation - more

One of the included cables is used to connect to the target computer's mouse, monitor, and keyboard, indicated by the "1" in Figure 3 below. Note that the provided cable requires the mouse and keyboard to have USB connections. Another cable is used to connect the GCN to the video port and a USB port on the target computer, indicated by the "2" in Figure 3. The third cable, indicated by the "5" in Figure 3, is used to connect to another USB port on the target computer, which is used for the USB file transfer functionality. All told, you'll need two USB ports on your target PC after you've removed your mouse and keyboard, to fully connect the GCN.

Figure 3: Installation diagram showing cable connections

Networking

Out of the box, the GCN is configured with an IP address of 192.168.0.60 on its 10/100 Mbps LAN interface. (Although a gigabit interface wouldn't make much difference for connections over the Internet, it would be nice for LAN functionality.) Unless your LAN is on the 192.168.0.0 subnet, you'll need to configure a PC on this subnet in order to access the GCN's configuration web page and reconfigure it to an IP on your LAN's subnet, or as a DHCP client.

Accessing the GCN over a LAN connection is via a web utility by pointing your browser to http://(GCN's IP address). The IOGEAR will automatically redirect your browser session to a more secure HTTPS connection. I was able to access the GCN over my LAN with both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox.

Figure 4 shows the network options menu on the GCN. At the top, it shows the default ports used for accessing the target PC via the Windows Client (port 9000) or Java Applet (port 9002). Just below that pane, configuring the IP address is similar to configuring a NIC on a Windows PC. At the bottom of the menu, the GCN can also be configured to send an email in the event you've selected Obtain an IP address automatically (DHCP client) and would like an email notification when the IP changes.

Figure 4: Network options menu

IOGEAR recommends configuring the GCN with a static LAN IP to ensure port forwarding has a consistent IP address. I configured my test GCN as a DHCP client, then configured my LAN router to always assign the same IP to the GCN based on its MAC address. This is called Reserved DHCP in my router. Other routers refers may refer to this functionality as Static DHCP. I like this form of DHCP, as it provides the convenience of DHCP and the functionality of a consistent IP address.

Accessing the GCN over the Internet requires a few more steps. Unless you have a public IP address to assign to the GCN, you'll probably want to use some form of dynamic DNS to provide an accessible URL. Most consumer grade routers support simple dynamic DNS, it's just a matter of configuring it.

Then, you'll need to configure port forwarding on your router to direct connections to the LAN IP of the GCN. Alternatively, you could use a VPN solution to access the GCN over the Internet if you have one in place for your LAN. In short, accessing the GCN over the Internet requires a router with dynamic DNS, port forwarding, and/or VPN capabilities. For testing the GCN, I used a NETGEAR FVS336G router (reviewed), which supports all three.

Tags: Iogear, IP KVM,

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