VNC ? again

[NoOp]

On 02/28/2008 09:31 AM, Wade Smart wrote:

> 
> 02282008 1114 GMT-6
> 
> NoOp, I have access to my computer again (what a relief) and I have 
> uninstalled tightvnc. I saw the post by David about the steps to get
> VNC working but something crept into my mind.
> 
> Just to be clear: I need to access a Ubuntu computer (about 20 right 
> now) from both ubuntu and windows XP systems. On the XP systems I am
> not allowed to install extra software such as the VNC Viewer so I
> wanted to do all of this over the browser.

That doesn't make sense to me. Using a VNC client is considerably easier
than using a web browser (IMHO). Further, the VNC client/server is
designed to handle screen, bandwith, and other vnc specific tasks.

> 
> And thinking one step ahead - as soon as I set this up the local
> admin will want to log in from home to fix something so security
> should be considered.

Simple: have him use the ssh instructions below, connect into his
machine and then initiate vnc sessions to the local lan computers from
there. I use this all the time, that way you only have one open
port/path. Added note: on the router only have the ssh and vnc ports
forwarded to the one secure machine, do not allow the IT guy to willy
nilly open up all the machines.

> 
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VNCOverSSH Reading this article
> about SSH - it says right at the beginning that it does not use Vino
> - but can it be used?

Yes. Assuming that you do have ssh installed on the Ubuntu machines, set
up an specific ssh port.

ssh -L 5910:localhost:5900 <IP of target machine>

Now from your VNC client, I'll use Krdc in this case, but you can use
others - xvnc4viewer is quite nice and also provides scrollbars that
work. xvnc4viewer also provides a decent visible mouse cursor whereas
Krdc only provides a little black box frame for the cursor.

VNC:/localhost:5910

Or from a terminal

xvnc4viewer localhost:5910

All traffic to/from the vnc client will now use the ssh session.

Note that you can also do the same with the Windows machines have RDP -
Krdc can use RDP as well. I've not tried it (RDP), but maybe that is
your solution for connecting to the XP machines - just install ssh and
use the built in Remote Desktop:
<http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/remoteintro.mspx>

> 
> And the next thing I have to think about is - (and this might be
> wishful thinking) the desktops being accessed are teachers pc's. They
> dont know anything about their computers. So I really want this to be
> as simple as possible.
> 

For who? You or the teachers? Not being a Smarta** , I'm trying to
understand if the teachers will also be using vnc, or only you and the
IT guy.