Using VNC with underpriviledged windows PC

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:05 am

Ok so my last period is basically a free period where I get to fsck around with the computers in my library but I want to be able to use my desktops GUI through VNC (or anything else if it would be easier). I have vnc 4.0 installed and when I type "vncserver" through webmin as root it says:

New 'localhost:1 (root)' desktop is localhost:1

Starting applications specified in /root/.vnc/xstartup
Log file is /root/.vnc/localhost:1.log

I need to access this from the windows 2000 computer at school. I have tried using Apache to host a SSHVnc Java applet but so far no luck. I have also tried installing TightVNC on a folder I have access to since it won't let me install it system wide but it won't connect. Is there anyway to know if they are blocking port 5900? Are there any other good portable apps or java applets that I could use? If they are blocking 5900 would SSH tunneling give it too much latency? If not how do I do that and if so how would I get around the port block? The best I have gotten so far is an SSH connection. Thanks.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:48 pm

I have used ssh tunneling over vnc and it works great. The latency is not that bad, espcially if you set your vncserver to use fluxbox with a black background or something equally easy to compress. I use putty on the windows machine to do the ssh tunnelling and then either tightvnc viewer or another vnc viewer to connect to the vncserver. I am sure you've come up with some good references, but here are a few that I used to set up my tunnel:

http://wheatstraw.is-a-geek.org/VNC%20t ... eling.html
http://www.linbox.com/ucome.rvt?file=/a ... shvnc.html
http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/RCF/UserInfo/So ... C/vnc.html

I would bet that port 5900 is closed off, but I believe you can tunnel ssh and vnc over port 80, which should be open if you can access the internet.

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:42 pm

Thanks for the info. I will be able to try this tomarrow, hopefully it will work.

BTW port 80 is being used by my router and 8080 is being used by apache but I can connect using PuTTY through port 22 so its not blocked.