VNC ? again

[Bart Silverstrim]

Wade Smart wrote:
> Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>> Wade Smart wrote:
>>   > Well, it needs to be simple for the teachers and the IT guy. I dont work
>>> for the school district - just help out when I can. So the admin is
>>> barely out of school in most cases and knows little.
>>>
>>> What I was asked to do is make it easy for the admin to access the
>>> teachers computer to either fix something or show them how to do
>>> something without him/her having to travel to each school. Right now
>>> this is implemented at only one school but if this works out - it will
>>> grow to all the schools.
>> As a person that has had a large setup with VNC, if you're talking about 
>> remote access to WinXP+ systems via VNC, you need to be careful with the 
>> Windows firewall.  It's one of our thorns when using it.
>>
> 
> 02292008 0723 GMT-6
> 
> I setup VNC two years ago for all their XP systems and its ran great. Of
> course - I didnt use the windows firewall - thats the first thing to go
> on all new pc's.

Yeah..problem for us is that it would magically reconfigure or restart 
itself after some updates.  Sometimes it seemed to just be random! 
*blip*...VNC no longer works...ARGH!

> I have been testing here at my house because I have the same basic setup
> as the school does but I cant even get it to work here.
> 
> On Firestarter - Allow Service for I have ports 5800 and 5900 allowed
> for Everyone. The ports are forwarded but, can it be that the java
> viewer isnt starting?

Use...<typing some apropos...> sudo socklist.  Use apt-get or synaptic 
to install it if it's not on your system.  That will tell you what is 
running with what port is open.  See that your VNC server is listening 
to those ports.

On my own setups, I don't usually use the Linux firewall simply because 
for my use, if I don't want someone in my machine I'm not running the 
service :-)  Well, for ssh, I also run denyhosts as a layer of 
protection.  That may not work for you though.

After checking that your ubuntu system is running the VNC server and has 
both ports monitored, try a portscan from your remote machine to see 
what ports appear open on your VNC server from the perspective of the 
client.  Then try dropping your software firewall and see if you can 
connect without problem.

That will tell you if it's a firewall issue.  I assume you're talking 
about linux as the VNC server, and some random OS as the client in your 
testing...?