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RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:29:18 GMT

[quote][b]zarthan (8/10/2007)[/b][hr]I can make several LINUX distributions available to you for testing if you like.[/quote]
Thanks! I appreciate the offer; I might get back to you on that one someday ;)

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:21:41 GMT

I can make several LINUX distributions available to you for testing if you like.

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:08:38 GMT

Poor selection of terminology on my part. The SSH terminal client would be nice.

RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:04:04 GMT

[quote]It isn't the firewall blocking the ssh connection. It is usually enabled. The installer would also need to add port 5901 to the firewall and restart the firewall. vncserver needs to be started if it wasn't already installed and started. The first time it is run it needs to have the password set. Other than the firewall what about dependencies. What if vncserver is already installed. What version? Is an Xserver installed? You are going to need a lot of feedback to the user.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I am saying don't focus on remote installation focus on remote execution and let others come up with scripts that could help overall server management not just vnc. Rather than copy files to the server, run the installer, set the password, open the firewall, restart the firewall, etc. let a script run the updater whether that be yum or apt or . . . resolve dependencies etc. Personally I don't think vnc is safe enough to be used without tunneling. I hope others don't as well. That would a lot of other decisions about an install.[/quote]
You certanly have a point here. We will start with Remote Exec for Unix implementation and see how it goes.

[quote]And besides if you need to add scp to the mix to transfer files to the server you might as well add the SSH client. ;D[/quote]
We do have a SSH client already, which we use for SSH port-forwarding. What we need is SSH terminal implementation and that's totaly different story :doze:

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:05:15 GMT

It isn't the firewall blocking the ssh connection. It is usually enabled. The installer would also need to add port 5901 to the firewall and restart the firewall. vncserver needs to be started if it wasn't already installed and started. The first time it is run it needs to have the password set. Other than the firewall what about dependencies. What if vncserver is already installed. What version? Is an Xserver installed? You are going to need a lot of feedback to the user.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I am saying don't focus on remote installation focus on remote execution and let others come up with scripts that could help overall server management not just vnc. Rather than copy files to the server, run the installer, set the password, open the firewall, restart the firewall, etc. let a script run the updater whether that be yum or apt or . . . resolve dependencies etc. Personally I don't think vnc is safe enough to be used without tunneling. I hope others don't as well. That would a lot of other decisions about an install.

And besides if you need to add scp to the mix to transfer files to the server you might as well add the SSH client. ;D

Thanks

RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:44:02 GMT

[quote][b]zarthan (8/7/2007)[/b][hr]I'm not sure that there is a big win here. vncserver is so easy to install and if you install a desktop it is probably already there. No complicated setup either. Just run it, add a password. I think there are a lot of variables and that you may end up chasing a feature for very little gain. Think about the firewall issues, on by default. vncserver can launch multiple times which means multiple possible ports. vnc isn't secure so the user will need to do some configuring anyway.

How about remote command execution as there is for Windows. Perhaps it could allow for remote execution of a script which did a vncserver install or any of a million other tasks. Solves many management tasks.[/quote]

Actually what VNC Deployment for Unix do is to run an RPM installer via SSH connection. VNC RPM package could be copied via SSH connection to the target PC and then installed. So I don't see any issues with firewall, unless it blocks SSH connections. The same goes to Remote Exec. What do you think?

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:52:13 GMT

I'm not sure that there is a big win here. vncserver is so easy to install and if you install a desktop it is probably already there. No complicated setup either. Just run it, add a password. I think there are a lot of variables and that you may end up chasing a feature for very little gain. Think about the firewall issues, on by default. vncserver can launch multiple times which means multiple possible ports. vnc isn't secure so the user will need to do some configuring anyway.

How about remote command execution as there is for Windows. Perhaps it could allow for remote execution of a script which did a vncserver install or any of a million other tasks. Solves many management tasks.

RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:43:36 GMT

[quote][b]iampedro (8/6/2007)[/b][hr]Please use a poll about the ones that people use that you could support besides Red Hat.[/quote]
Will do

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:28:36 GMT

Don't think so. It is looking for the ADMIN$ share. It would be nice. It would allow remote start of the vncserver. I would absolutely allow VMWare command line control (my other request).

RE: VNC for Unix

iampedro — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:00:35 GMT

Please use a poll about the ones that people use that you could support besides Red Hat.

RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 14:31:56 GMT

You are correct about problems supporting different Linux/Unix distros. I think in its first implementation VNC Deployment will support Red Hat and probably one or two other mainstream distros.

By the way, there is a chance that SmartCode Remote Exec will support remote exec on Unix/Linux machines.

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:56:03 GMT

Yes it does and I have been using the tunneling. I tunnel useing the ssh server on the box I want to control. Very, very useful. I was just saying the the current VNC manager supports the vncserver on uniix and in fact it presumiblly has since day one. The only thing lacking is the remote install. I can't imagine the problems in supporting the install though, given all the different distributions, dependencies, etc. On some, perhaps most distributions, vncservier is installed when you install X.

RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 11:58:06 GMT

[quote][b]zarthan (8/6/2007)[/b][hr]I use vnc within VNC Manager all the time. I use the ssh tunnel to the server I want to use as well.[/quote]
The VNC Manager supports built-in SSH tunneling for VNC/RDP connections since v3.5

RE: VNC for Unix

zarthan — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:07:58 GMT

I use vnc within VNC Manager all the time. I use the ssh tunnel to the server I want to use as well.

RE: VNC for Unix

Support (s-code) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 02:18:32 GMT

Actually it could be done and it would be a cool feature. We will do some research regarding this feature. I'll keep post update to this thread in a short while.

VNC for Unix

iampedro — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:29:31 GMT

It would be great if we could natively connect to VNC or install VNC for unix... :)