Vnc

[SteveC]

Anyone know of any problems with using VNC on important live servers? We use it here at work, but I want to be sure (ignoring the security issue of just one password to get to the machine) that it's not causing any instability problems or anything.

[cjolley]

Our DBAs use VNC all the time to manage database servers that carry multi-billion dollar financial data.
I don't think they would be willing to do without
chuck

[Wombat]

We use VNC here on some important boxes.

[MultimediaMan]

We use it where I work as well.

Some of our important boxes at remote locations do not even have a KB and mouse, to keep the ignorant off of them. We just dial in whenever to look at any problems or to add software.

We DO restrict it's use to the private network, and no-one can use from outside of the firewall.

[Wombat]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the private network part.
There are patches for VNC to add various encryptions.

Also, on my home machine, I leave the VNC server daemon off. If I want VNC, I first ssh into the machine, then start the server, then log on to the client.

You could go even farther if you put a firewall in place, or set up allowed IPs.

[Reverend Maynard]

Pardon my newbieness, but I am curious. What is VNC? Something to do with allowing installation/changes to be made from an external computer source I would guess, but no doubt there is more to it than that.


Thanks,
Jake

[Wombat]

I forget what the acronym is (Virtual Network Console?), but it allows you to export your video display over the network. This is a big deal for Windows users.

[Lemmin]

Slightly heavy?

We use VNC for both development and production servers, over short (3m) and long (50km) distances. I've never had any instability with it, and I've used it for about 3 years.

It can however be a bit resource-heavy. It chews bandwidth quite happily, and with certain graphics cards (especially ATI) in a server, just connecting can instantly use 20 to 30% of the CPU cycles of a 700mhz proc.

Also, I have (unconfirmed) reports of problems with Intel graphics cards and win2k. It seems that with an Intel card in a win2k box, SOME machines will simply never let a VNC client connect.

Has anyone tried VNC on PocketPC? I know when ORL were first working on it they had a winCE version - just strikes me as a usefull way of controlling your servers from the pub...

Lemmin

[SteveC]

I think VNC is Virtual Network Computing - but I might be wrong

Yeah - it's basically a free and better version of PCAnywhere - it doesn't install any problem causing video drivers or anything, and all it needs is a TCP/IP connection.

Thanks guys for all your feedback - my mind is now at ease I use it all over the place - remembering the passwords is almost a game now!

[SteveC]

Re: Slightly heavy?

Originally posted by Lemmin

Has anyone tried VNC on PocketPC? I know when ORL were first working on it they had a winCE version - just strikes me as a usefull way of controlling your servers from the pub...

Lemmin

Yes! I have - I've tried VNC on my iPAQ over the 9600 bps connection of my mobile phone! It's DAMN slow, but it works! I can't wait for GPRS, then it'll be much more useful