OK – just fresh off solving the reason I couldn’t get vmplayer to start on my 1Ghz AMD 64 1GB of memory machine…. I started looking at vmserver. (RC1). Now, vmplayer is a free download (so is vmware server). I’m really liking what I see from vmware server and am pretty sure I’m going to stick with it over the player. There are quite a few interesting features and I’ll try to give a skim over them. For starters, there is a management console that gives you the ability to connect to a vmware server on a different host (with credentials as a user on that system), or the localhost. On the localmachine it shows what virtual machines you have configured and gives you the chance to create another one, open an existing one not in the list, or tweak host settings.
Category: Windows
-
Big Windows June update day
Updates for Windows for the month of June are out today and it looks like some list! 12 updates covering 20 or more vulnerabilities. MANY of these are tagged as critical. (Critical vulnerabilities are considered remotely exploited or with little (or no) user interaction.) Sans has a good listing of the advisories. This month it is a bit much to track in one big whallop… but I’ll try to give a summary here.
-
Wine-Doors the future of Windows software installing on Linux
I just came across this article about wine-doors which sounds VERY promising. Of course, let me set the stage. Wine is a windows compatibility api for linux. The goal of wine is to allow windows applications to run on top of a linux system without modification (of the original windows version.) There are codeweavers wine (a commercial version that drives most of the development – and is known for easier installs of software.), the main open source wine and cedaga (aimed towards games 3d directx implementation.)
-
Qemu 0.8.1 (with kqemu 1.3.0pre7)
While I was testing out the “single cut and paste” linux vnc remote desktop sharing script and x11vnc binary…. I spent a fair amount of time booting up livecd’s n qemu to test various distributions/ages of linux setups to see how compatible things were. I had not checked in at the qemu site in quite a while (a few months), but there was a new version out… in fact, I think 0.7.1 is what I was running previously, so I missed 0.7.2 and 0.8.0… Anyway, I’m running 0.8.1 now and I compiled kqemu as well (now at 1.3.0pre7)…. wow qemu has made great strides (with kqemu) since 0.7.1 ….
-
Remote tech support with anything – would I do it?
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. …
-
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….
-
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).
-
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.)
-
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…)
-
20 things you won’t like about Vista
I don’t know, it seems excessively wine-y to gripe about an operating system that isn’t released yet, but I’ve seen people do that about linux quite a bit…. (why doesn’t xyz work in beta 1 of _____ distribution….) It’s a beta, there will be many things that aren’t likable, report it where they’re looking for feedback… That much said, there was an article out at Computer world detailing the 20 things you’ll dislike with Vista. Of course, given that it’s a beta things will likely change (yeah – there’ll be 30 things you don’t like by the full release…. sorry had to be said.) Seriously, hopefully Microsoft is listening to this feedback. I’ve heard that they are aware they need to make the UAP less “in your face all the time…”