[ale] ubiquitizing the desktop

[meggolding at yahoo.com (Megan Golding)]

--- "Cory T. Echols" <ctechols at mindspring.com> wrote:
> On 12/19, attriel wrote: 
> > I used to use VNC for this, but due to job constraints, I have to
> > use an encrypted link and I don't know how well VNC sets up with 
> > one of those ...
> 
> As a basic, generic mechanism, I'd recommend setting up ssh, and
> then tunneling everything else through ssh's port forwarding 
> mechanism. Specifically, I've used VNC over ssh tunnels with 
> success.

As an interesting note: You might expect tunelling vnc over ssh to be
slower than without. Based on some quick experiements I tried, VNC
over ssh is not noticably slower than unencrypted VNC.

The generic procedure is to ssh into the machine where your desktop
resides and start the VNC server. Next, you set up an ssh tunnel
between the machine you're at and the desktop machine (that's the ssh
-L option). The tunnel makes the remote machine look like it's on the
localhost at some specified port. 

Finally, you make a VNC connection from the machine you're at to the
localhost at the right port. That'll tunnel the VNC connection to the
desktop machine over the ssh connection.

On Windows, I use putty as my ssh app. Though they handle the ssh
tunnel option graphically, the options are all there. Here's another
resource: http://drvandv.com/freesco/VNC/ (vnc over ssh with putty).

> 
> You can check the ssh man page for the "-L" option.  There is also
> a tutorial here:
> 
> http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/excerpt/ssh_11/index3.html
> 

As a note: I use VNC over the Internet (my end is a DSL connection)
to reach a Windows machine. The connection was fairly slow and I
wouldn't suggest it as your regular working solution. Sure, it was
fast enough, but I hated waiting for the connection to catch up with
me.

What about running X over ssh?

Regards,


=====
Meg Golding    |    http://www.kalamitykat.com

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale