Back to My Mac

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Back to My Mac is a feature of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard that uses Wide-Area Bonjour to securely discover services across the Internet and automatically configure ad hoc, on-demand, point-to-point encrypted connections between computers using IPSec. It requires users to have a .Mac subscription, as it uses .Mac for the Dynamic DNS service portion of Wide-Area Bonjour.

Due to its generality, Back to My Mac can work for many Bonjour-enabled services, not just Screen Sharing (similar to Apple Remote Desktop) and File Sharing. In addition to requiring a .Mac subscription, users must have a router that supports either UPNP (Universal Plug & Play) or NAT-PMP (NAT Port Mapping Protocol) with either of those features enabled in their connected router. It uses UDP port 4500 for point-to-point IPSec connections (which may be mapped to different UDP ports on the public side of a NAT router).

[edit] Uses

Back to My Mac can be used to edit and transfer files from another Mac to your Mac. In one instance an Apple Store employee used this technology to capture the image of a person who stole her MacBook Pro using the built in iSight webcam.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ [1] Stolen laptop leads victim to alleged thieves, 2008 May 8
  • [2] - Macword article on Back to My Mac.
  • [3] - Macword article on Back to My Mac port mapping.


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