I’ve tried to ask myself if I’d trust someone enough to let them run a remote session on my own desktop to solve a problem. I think the answer is “it depends”. If you think about it, I do tech support for home users quite a bit and they let me come into their homes. If I were weighing someone coming into my house, or onto my computer desktop, I think I’d choose my desktop. …
Month: June 2006
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x11vnc slow internet initial-connection performance – identd timeout
So, I had the script all ready, I’ve got my x11vnc custom compiled to be as widely compatible as possible, I’ve tested thoroughly on the internal network. The next step was to test my x11vnc “one cut and paste” script over the internet. So, I visited my parents pc which dual-boots Windows XP and Mandrake 10.0…. I did the cut and paste into the “run command…” menu and waited and waited and waited. dropped to a console and started again, but checked that x11vnc was already running. I didn’t know what could be taking so long. I tried again and the FIRST connection gave the prompt.
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The security of remote tech support (ultravnc sc or x11vnc with wrapper script)
Well, I’ve got a nice way of doing “easy” one click (or one cut and paste) light desktop support for windows or linux, one uses ultravnc sc, the other uses x11vnc with a special wrapper script. So, what security flaws are there in this process? Well, for starters, I see the biggest vulnerability for the computer running the listening vncviewer (because it HAS to be available to the outside world.) That means the tech support desk must keep on top of vncviewer updates and keep the service turned off when not expecting a client connection. The other question that comes to mind is encryption though….
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A closer look at x11vnc
I’ve got to say, one of the things I really like about linux are the myriad of options for remotely administering a system. SSH is the one I use the most, but for the graphical you have x (especially on the LAN), nxserver (which is a compressed and optionally encrypted wrapper of the X protocol….), vnc can be used, although as I’ve noted in the prior articles one problem with either nxserver, X or vnc is that you can’t by default connect to a running X session. x0rfbserver CAN, but only if a user is logged in (as far as I know….) I found an interesting trick with x11vnc that let’s you run it even if the system is at the greeter. (the login screen for X).
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x11vnc recompiled to be as widely compatible as possible…
As I said in the earlier posts, I was essentially looking for a “Single click” solution for linux VNC remote desktop support. A solution that doesn’t require the remote support client to change firewall settings, install software, etc. What I’ve settled on is closer to a single cut and paste solution, which is fairly simple. The next problem I had was compatibility of the x11vnc binary. The first problem was the xfixes library not being a part of Mandrake 10.0, then xdamage, xrender, xrandr – none of those libraries were found… so, I started looking at the compile options for x11vnc (and the optimization, because I wanted a smaller file size.)
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Remote Tech Support with x11vnc and wrapper script
So, the idea is that I wanted something “like” the Ultranvnc Single Click download, only for linux. The main idea being is that if someone is looking for a bit of desktop tech support on linux, we don’t need to be giving instructions for 5 different package managers, or source compilation, or anything more than MAYBE something to cut and paste. In fact, something like this…. wget http://www.mysite.com/remote-support && sh remote-support could be easily pasted into a console window (which hopefully we can give instructions on finding), or a run command in kde for instance. Then the remote-support script should do the rest. *(By the way, the script doesn’t have to be chmod’ed to executable when we use sh to invoke it…)
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Remote Tech Support using VNC (Ultravnc SC and x11vnc+wrapper script)
Ok, some time back I’d done a writeup on UltraVNC SC, which is a nice customizable (windows version) VNC server that essentially let’s someone doing remote support build their own downloadable .exe that runs and automatically tries to make a direct connection to a “listening” vnc viewer. It’s good for helpdesk environments as an easy download and run, and I’ve done some trials at using it over the internet with some of my existing computer service customers. Very soon, I’ll be adding a page and information about Remote Tech support services using this same method. I have run into some problems with it though. There are multiple advantages to this approach though (the main being NO firewall config for the user needing remote support – all firewall config is done at the “support center” end. Another advantage being that it’s “hardcoded” to connect to a specific given address and if that fails it gives up and uninstalls itself. The last advantage being that it completely uninstalls after a successful session as well. (Well, technically it never “installs” to begin with.))
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Day of a thousand posts…
It’s funny, some days there seems to be nothing happen that really is outstanding or different, or noteworthy. I don’t know, you see the same news stories, feel like you fix the same problems, etc….. Yesterday though, I worked on a couple of things which will find their way here in the form of posts soon (if time allows). It won’t quite be a thousand posts, but ….
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Knoppix 5
It’s hard to believe it’s time for a version 5 of knoppix, but … I guess it is. I was just booting up Knoppix 4 in a qemu session last night and already several days behind 5… Anyway, Knoppix 5 was released on June 2nd. I saw the note the day after the Ubuntu dapper release, but never got to do a post. (It’s actually 5.0.1 available for download – the 5.0 release was released at CeBiT). Anyway, there are DVD and CD iso’s and bittorrent downloads are available. You might look here for a list of torrent download links.
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Google Spreadsheet…
If you haven’t heard of this yet, I’m not quite sure how you’ve missed it since last night… There have been article, after article telling of Google’s intention to release a limited trial of their new online spreadsheet at a screenshot tour. Also, this will be a limited trial (so they don’t do an analytics type launch I suspect.) So, there is a form to submit your email address to be considered for the limited trial.