Trolling4Dollars's Journal: w00t I'm un-banned/Xvnc rules

That was fun. I'm going to try for a two week ban next time. :p

Here's a quick and dirty on how to set up Xvnc for use with GDM (Gnome Login Manager) on Fedora Core 3 Test 1 (also applies to RedHat 9):

1. Download the binary release of vnc 4 from www.realvnc.org and save it somewhere you have write access to.
2. Extract the tarball with the following command: tar -zxvf vnc-4.xxxxxx.tar.gz
3. Become root and cd into the resulting directory from step 2.
4. mkdir /usr/local/vnc4
5. Install vnc by running the install command:
./vncinstall /usr/local/vnc4
6. Open /etc/X11/gdm.conf inyour preferred text editor
7. Alter the following lines:
If uncommented, comment out this line: FirstVT=7
Uncomment and set the following line to 'false': VTAllocation=false
In the [servers] section, uncomment the '1=Standard' line and change it to: 1=VNC
Just below the last line of the "Defition of the standard X server" section add the following lines:

[server-VNC]
name=VNC Server
command=/usr/local/vnc4/Xvnc -desktop "My Remote Desktop" -ac -geometry 1024x768 -SecurityTypes=none
flexible=true
Note the the "command=" line is all one long line that wrapped. Ot should end with 'SecurityTypes=none'.

8. Save the file and exit
9. Go into 'CLI Only Mode' by issuing the following command at a shell prompt: init 3
10. Switch back into 'Full GUI Mode' by issuing the following command at a shell prompt: init 5
11. Check to see if you have an Xvnc server running for desktop :1 by doing the following:
ps -ax | grep Xvnc

If this all goes well (it should in about 90% of the cases) pop open a vncviewer on another machine on your network and connect to display :1
For example, if the machine that the Xvnc server is running on is 192.168.1.1, then you would enter 192.168.1.1:1 in your vncviewer dialog and then click OK.

A quick explanation of the Xvnc parameters used above:
-geometry nnnXnnn = This controls the size of your desktop. I used 1024x768, but you can go larger or smaller if you want to.
-desktop = This will assign a name to your desktop that will be displayed in the VNC viewer's title bar.
-SecurityTypes = This determines if you will use VNC authentication. Since GDM is going to provide authentication, this is redundant, so I've disabled it. However, if you are paranoid, you can leave this parameter out and get prompted for the VNC password. I would suggest that you also set a screensaver that will automatically lock your session after a specified timeout.

Why is this useful? For one, you can set up a few of these desktops on one box and use it as a "terminal server" for multiple users. The other reason is that if you use ssh from a remote location to home, you can tunnel the VNC desktop to wherever you are and pick up just where you left off the last time you used the desktop. I've used this many times to start writing a post for /. at work, and then pick up with it at home. Also nice in that any web browsing you do is going out of your DSL at home so your boss can't snoop on you. The VNC is encrypted over the SSH tunnel, so there's little chance of that being intercepted as well. I hope some of you find this useful. Any other suggestions would be welcome. I keep hoping that someone will find a way to get the system (ALSA maybe?) to stream all system sounds to an icecast server. Then this thing could possibly do remote sound as well. Forwarding bandwidth intenstive esd data over an SSH tunnel to the local esd doesn't work too well. For info on using SSH for tunneling, look at my older JEs here and here.

version question

[grub]

At work we use TightVNC [tightvnc.org] a lot. Is there a big difference between the two? I know that Tight supports file transfers between clients (Windows, latest beta versions only IIRC) and other features.

Re:version question

[Trolling4Dollars]

I think TightVNC will work with it. I haven't used Tight in a while myself. However, I don't think file xfers will work. That might be a Windows only feature.

Now if only ...

[tomhudson]

If you could combine the steps for setting up ssh and vnc into one article, I'd be the first to give it a shot at the office :-)

In the meantime, I'm going to test it out at home this weekend. Thanks a million.

Re:Now if only ...

[Trolling4Dollars]

I've added links back to some older JEs about SSH tunnels and keys that I wrote a while back. Let me know if you have any questions about either SSH or VNC. I'll answer what I can. :)

Re:Now if only ...

[tomhudson]

Thanks - I had seen them before, but hadn't gotten around to doing any etesting/setup.

As soon as I'm finished writing the current application (about another week), I'm going to take a few days to experiment, then set up all the office linux boxes so I can maintain them from home (the 2 windows box can go fuck themselves - one's mostly used for gaming, and the other one is a standalone test bed anyway :-).

Re:Now if only ...

[Trolling4Dollars]

Thank you for our inciteful comments sir. I am interested in your newsletter and would like to subscribe.

Oh yeah. In the words of our great vice president: "Go fuck yourself"!

Whee this is fun.