VNC question

[Timothy Brown]

On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 12:59:06AM -0800, belinda thom wrote:
> I'm in a bit of a bind---I need to get desktop access to a machine  
> that I don't have physical access to.

Just a couple of questions...

What kind of "desktop access" do you need? As in do you need X11 or
Aqua[0]? I find X11 is simple to setup[1] and use it all the time as I
work mostly on machines with X11 (if they have any windowing systems).

> 
> After some googling, I learned about VNCs, and that macports has both  
> a server (osxvnc) and a client (cotvnc).

I have never used osxvnc, sorry. However I do have cotvnc 
(Chicken of the VNC), it's very simple to use.

> 
> I've never used a VNC and am a bit worried that I won't be able to  
> set them up.

You have to start the vnc program on the server (osxvnc or any other
vncserver), then it's just a matter of starting your local vnc client
and point it to the server. A side note, what's in between the server
and client network-wise? Same network without any firewalls?

> 
> Presumably, the server is the one that "serves up" the desktop, so  
> the remote machine would have to run that. I only have access to that  
> machine currently via Terminal and ssh.

Yeap. Having only ssh access might be hard if you want to do non-X11
stuff. If it's X11 you don't really need vnc and just X11 forwarding
will work.

> Has anybody done this type of thing before? Any insight/advice welcome.

Was any of this helpful? Or did I just make no sense at all?
I hope I helped...

Timothy

[0] Am I correct in calling the OS X window system Aqua? You know the
    Cocoa stuff....

[1] Steps to use X11 remotely:
- On your local machine (machine with the display) start X11
  (Under OS X I think this is an additional package fro the developer
   CD. I can't really remember, sorry)
- Make sure you are exporting your DISPLAY environment variable,
  this is normally along the lines of localhost:0.0. I have the
  following in my .profile:

        if [[ -z $DISPLAY && -z $SSH_CONNECTION ]]; then
                disp_no=($( ps -awx | grep -F X11.app | awk '{print $NF}' \
                        | grep -e ":[0-9]"  ))
                if [[ -n $disp_no ]]; then
                        export DISPLAY=`hostname`${disp_no}.0
                else
                        export DISPLAY=`hostname`0.0
                fi
        fi

  Yes, I am a bit different.... :)
- When connecting to the remote machine (server without the display),
  use ssh with X11 Forwarding enabled (`ssh -Y server`). I have the 
  following in my .ssh/config:

        Host    *
                Compression     yes
                CompressionLevel        6
                ForwardX11      yes
                Protocol        2,1
                ServerAliveInterval     300

- On the server you should enable X11 Forwarding too. In 
  /etc/sshd_config:

       X11Forwarding yes

Now when you login to a remote machine you should be able run X11 
applcations. Did any of that make sense or even address what you were
asking? :)