VNC multiplexer

[Anthony Chavez]

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On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:42:53 -0500 Nikolas Britton <nikolas.britton at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/26/05, Anthony Chavez <acc at anthonychavez.org> wrote:
>> I've got a client that would like to be able to connect to VNC servers
>> behind a FreeBSD gateway.  Said servers are assigned dynamic IPs via
>> DHCP, so port mapping (via pf) is not an option (AFAIK).  However, we
>> intend to make use of dynamic DNS, so they will at least have hostnames.
>
> Why can't you just give them static mappings. On my networks I use
> DHCP for everything.
> I then tell my DHCP/DNS server (m0n0wall) to reserve and only give
> this ip address to server x or printer y etc.to put it bluntly...

Static IPs would certainly work, but this particular subnet is expected
to see a large degree of growth over the next few years, and my client
specificially asked for dynamic IPs.

>> One solution we've considered is setting up a multiplexer of sorts that
>> would enable users of VNC client apps to pick and choose which machine
>> to connect to inside the LAN per session, but I'm curious to know if
>> such a thing (or something similar) exists already.
>
> I've never heard of such a device

And after researching it, I'm discovering that even *making* such a
device would be extremely difficult because the VNC protocol itself does
not lend itself well to proxying.  So there's my answer: write a
multiplexer myself.

>> I'd be very interested in knowing what solutions any of you may have
>> come with to tackle this problem.
>
> DNS..... ummmm what about setting up a web page where the user can
> click on which server to connect to (you will still need DNS or Static
> mappings) and then it opens up in a java VNC client?

We've considered doing that.  However, my client has been somewhat
unimpressed by the Java VNC client, and is not terribly interested in
using it either.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your response.

- -- 
Anthony Chavez                                 http://anthonychavez.org/
mailto:acc at anthonychavez.org         jabber:acc at jabber.anthonychavez.org
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