Can I view my home computer from work?

Sorry, I want to access my home computer from work.

I think openssh-server should be able to give you access. Although your network administrator might not approve. I would start there, and maybe see if you are allowed to do this, as you could potentially set up port forwarding and bypass company internet filters. I would certainly ask your boss if you are allowed to do this before trying.

Well the big question is whether you have a public IP address or not.

Many IP providers assign private IP addresses to home subscribers and uses so called network address translation (NAT). Even if your IP provider doesn't do it, it might still happen inside your home e.g. in a wireless router. If this is the case you computer cannot be addressed from the outside internet. Only connections from you computer towards the internet work.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_network for the details.

You can see your own computer's IP address by right clicking on the networking symbol in the upper right corner of your screen and selecting "connection infomration". Alternatively use the ifconfig command in a shell.

Next issue: Most companies use firewalls and allow only port 80 (http) etc. So even though your computer might be visible on the internet, it could very well happen that you cannot connect to it without extra tricks.

If these problems are solved, you need to tell us what you want to do:

- open a terminal session? look for ssh on the command line, read "man ssh" (this is pretty secure)
- transfer single files? look for sftp on the command line, read "man sftp" (this is pretty secure)
- share an existing graphical UI session (look for System --> Preferences --> Remote Desktop) (this is not very secure over the internet without extra tricks)
- start a new graphical UI session (this requires an Xserver on your work computer and a quite long explanation, so I will skip it here)

This list is not complete...

If you have problems with firewalls or dynamic ip's you may want to look into hamachi. The program is not free in the sense of being open source but it is free in terms of cost. There is at least one easy-to-use open source alternative that I know of called tinc; however, I have never used it so I can't personally attest to how well it works. Both programs create a VPN that tunnels traffic over protocols that don't interfere with most firewall setups. Here are links with some information:

http://www.tinc-vpn.org/
https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp

If your private IP address changes regularly and you want to get this address from work, you should try dyndns.org.