NX server and client is a GREAT remote X approach that can tunnel over fairly narrow links well and does phenomenally well over a LAN. I frequently use NX in place of VNC when working with Linux based systems because the performance seems much better and the client has a nice way to choose from preset sessions. (You can also do individual applications, etc…) One of the benefits over X tunneling is the compression…. Anyway, I’ve gone through setting this up several times on various ubuntu 6.06 installs and thought I’d go ahead and document this on the web page so I didn’t have to keep hunting links each time….
Tag: VNC
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Using screen to connect multiple users to a shell session
I NEVER knew you could use screen for this…. Let multiple users connect to the same Console (command shell/bash shell) session simultaneously. I’ve looked at screen before. It’s a great *nix utility that’s available for most linux distributions. The primary use I’ve seen for it is to be able to have a shell open, and use screen to be able to disconnect and reconnect to a session. Let’s say you have software compiling, you can use screen to get it started from one location and then re-connect to your screen session from another machine. Think…. VNC for the command line. Well, much like VNC it’s possible for multiple users to view and use the session.
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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 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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RealVNC 4.1.1 and prior exploits on the loose
As reported over the last several days, there is a critical problem with RealVNC 4.1.1, there is NOW an exploit in the wild for RealVNC 4.1.1, that SANS is looking for more information on. There are updates from RealVNC for all affected product lines. Other VNC implementations have not been reported to be affected. Only (as far as I know), RealVNC 4.1.1 on Windows (prior versions may be, but the initial report didn’t indicate 4.1.0 to be vulnerable.) Don’t take the last sentence to give an excuse NOT to check, check if you have updates for your vnc product.
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RealVNC 4.1.2 update to patch security vulnerability
A few hours back, I updated My first post on the RealVNC 4.1.1 vulnerability and just saw another story that did not specify WHICH variation of VNC was at risk. TightVNC and UltraVNC seem to be immune according to the discoverer of the flaw. And as far as I’ve seen, there hasn’t been any contradiction of that.
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Real VNC 4.1.1 vulnerability – Remote Access without password
This is one worth checking out anybody using vnc for remote administration. It looks as though intelliadmin has come across a vulnerability in Real VNC 4 (the slashdot post I saw suggested “any machine running VNC 4.1”) I haven’t tested yet, so I don’t know if this ONLY affects REALVNC’s implementation or is broader. They have a proof of concept page which attempts to connect to the ip of the browser at the vnc port and display a screenshot. The site is getting slashdotted at the moment, so revisit this page and link until you get a chance to test out your VNC serving machines.
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Running UltraVNC viewer under wine
I talked in the last entry about using UltraVNC and UltraVNC Single Click (ultravnc sc) as a means of doing remote desktop support. The idea is that you (the technical support person), setup vncviewer to listen for connections, then the end user with pc problems can download your customized ultravnc server that will connect to your viewer through firewalls/etc. This has a lot of things going for it. 1) ease of use by the end user 2) only one network to make firewall configuration changes on, 3) small quick download. The biggest downside I see is that the ultravnc viewer doesn’t run on linux.
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Ultravnc for remote computer support
A little while back I talked some about TightVNC which for a long time has been my favorite implementation of a remote framebuffer, or remote desktop viewing protocol known as VNC (Virtual Network Computing.) The original VNC (now realvnc) came out of AT&T research labs in the UK and has developed quite a following as a pcanywhere alternative depending on what you need to do. Now, tightvnc has been a favorite of mine for a couple reasons. 1) it’s well supported under linux which is a must for me…, 2) it excels at slower speed connections. Which is also fairly important to me.
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VNC or Tightvnc for remote pc access
I was surprised to do a search and find that I haven’t mentioned tightvnc before (or even merely VNC as a useful tool.) Ok – here’s the scenario, you need a way to get remote pc access, or remotely view a desktop, maybe it’s a Windows machine and you’re using a Mac? Or Maybe it’s a Mac and you have a linux desktop? Or a Linux server from a Windows machine? Most of the time in the Windows to Windows remote control area the choice becomes either Remote Desktop, or PCAnywhere. There are other options though. One that I’m particularly found of is TightVNC, which is an implementation of the VNC protocol (VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing).