print over the internet...

[blighter]

hey all,

didnt know where to post this so hope its right
basically my mum and dad live seperate and sometimes i want to print things to the other house... i have a USB printer at each house connected to a PC which is always on.

is there a program i can run on WinXP Pro that can share this printer over the internet? if so i need the port numbers to setup port forwarding

thanks

 

[Scythe]

I think you might be able to use a VPN or WAN connection and use the File & Printer sharing protocol and it might work.

 

[Joe42]

If they are both multifunction printers they may have a fax function.
Can't you email it to the other house and have them print it?

 

[kitten]

The printer end will need a static IP. Else you will have to discover this IP everytime you want to print at the remote end. Windows file sharing and windows printer sharing use the same protocol, so if your printers are visible over the internet so are all your shares. As suggested you will need to set up a VPN tunnel between you and the shared printers network. Most new ADSL routers support VPN and have wizards to set a VPN up. Once the VPN is up and you connect to the home network through the VPN then the printer share will be accessible via the machine it is physically connected to, as will all other shared resources. If you do not use a VPN there are serious security implications. ports 137-139 are for NetBIOS over TCP/IP

Here is some more indepth information about sharing files over the internet

http://cable-dsl.home.att.net/netbios.htm

There is a statement which is somewhat misleading:
Quote
"In other words, if (for example) you have not actually configured any "shares," then there is no real security risk from File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks being bound to TCP/IP". End Quote

Not necessarily true as some versions of windows set up hidden administrative shares ie; c$ and admin$. If you have a weak or no admin password then this IS a security risk.