What are your thoughts on vnc?

agent_paul · 26 Mar 2009 at 14:38

Im currently rebuilding my file/web server using ubuntu desktop and have been thinking about administration via remote desktop.

basically, im thinking about whether or not i should install realVnc or any other alternative on it. should i do it? are there any security implications?

the reason i ask is because i've had my development machine hacked into because a realvnc vulnerability.

thanks for any advice.

agent_paul · 26 Mar 2009 at 15:44

thanks for your reply ethos.

i considered using the server edition too but im not a 100% Linux guy (even though ive had my fare share of using busybox) and i wont be the only person using the machine.

i was thinking of using vnc just for surfing on the box for things im not supposed to do here at work

and other things.

thanks for the tip about changing the port. i would definitely do that incase of any port sniffers.

anyone got anything else to add?

agent_paul · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:28

Hi iaind, yes its slow but my internet connect is just decent enough for me to bare it. i guess i can use something like lynx instead but its got limited support

thanks

agent_paul · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:29

RKO, do you experience any issues when you do? things that get on your nerves or quirky bugs?

agent_paul · 26 Mar 2009 at 16:38

are there any advantages in using RDP, i just did a quick google and all i can see is that its slightly faster

agent_paul · 26 Mar 2009 at 19:47

Hmm i think ill spend some time reading up RDP and LogMeIn. ive never heard of LogMeIn before. is it secure?

thanks

agent_paul · 27 Mar 2009 at 09:10

thanks yashiro,

i totally forgot about ssh with x forwarding. so whenever im on a linux box ill be doing that. would this work on a windows box using putty or any other ssh program? i cant think of any reason why it wouldnt....

agent_paul · 28 Mar 2009 at 23:27

webmin is cool, ive already installed it and it allows me to do most of the things without vnc

agent_paul · 31 Mar 2009 at 22:38

ok, ive had a quick look at realvnc enterprise and it costs about £35 for a single license. which isnt tooo bad but being me (and credit crunch n all) id rather not spend any monies

i've been using ssh with x forwarding and tunneling these last few days and they seem fine.

nikebee / dracata, have you guys actually used the alternatives to real vnc? people ive spoken to people at work and tell me to go for RDP but i have a feeling that they are only saying it without any proper reasons

agent_paul · 1 Apr 2009 at 08:42

mrbios said:
No it's not

I use it at work practically every single day, we RDP to servers but all our XP workstations have VNC on them, the only difference you ever notice is when a video is playing on the remote pc, it's certainly not slow by any means

I guess this is largely to do with bandwidth and seeing as it can vary, speeds will differ.

if i were to use vnc while someone on the network was hogging the bandwidth i guess it would be totally unusable.

agent_paul · 1 Apr 2009 at 09:12

mrbios said:
I'd be fairly worried if a single person could hog all the bandwidth

I guess I've never bothered to monitor the amount of bandwidth it needs, it'd be interesting to find out, there's only one thing on our network that makes speeds crawl and that's the ultrium backup that runs over night

ah, well i only have an up to 8 meg line, a brother that loves to dl, game and stream content. so if i did vnc through the internet, there would be times when vnc'ing would look like its done on a 56k modem

agent_paul · 3 Apr 2009 at 09:16

thanks for the advice guys! i think ill purchase the enterprise version of realVNC but once installed ill configure it such that ill have to manually startup the service.

i though id do this for security reasons. just incase someone does find out i have vnc running on x port, the service wont always be running for them to log in.