VNC

What is VNC? Why do we need to be familiar with VNC? Where do we get VNC? Limitations of VNC? Other notes about VNC?

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) Remote control system of other computer

windowing environments Allows access to “desktops” of like or

different operating systems Developed by AT&T Laboratories Freely Available

UNIXUNIX WindowsWindows

MacMac

server sends small rectangles of the frame buffer to the client.use a lot of bandwidth.raw encoding where pixel data is sent in left-to-right scanline order.original full screen has been transmitted, only transfers rectangles that change.a mouse pointer moving across a desktop .), but bandwidth demands get very high if a lot of pixels change at the same time. viewing full-screen video.VNC by default uses TCP port 5900.

simple protocol for remote access to graphical user interfaces.at the frame buffer level.it is applicable to all systems and applications, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and the X Window System.) as a remote display technology to be used by a simple thin client with ATM connectivity called a Videotile.It has three versions (current 3.8)

VNC has two major software components

vncservervncserver

vncviewervncviewer

AT&T Laboratories, Cambridge UKhttp://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/

Available for UNIX environment Requires system administrator privileges Already installed on the CIS machines

Available for Windows platform Requires you to download and install on your

machine Available for Mac platform Available for Java-enabled browsers

In 1994, ORL built the Videotile .is a display device with an LCD screen, a pen, and an ATM network connection.designed to display good-quality video.a remote computer screen as a video source and simply shipped the user interface as raw video onto the tileworked surprisingly well.but used a significant amount of bandwidth.

VNC is network resource intensive High Bandwidth connection = Good situation Low Bandwidth connection = Bad situation

Filesystems are still separate between different operating systems Transferring files still requires other

mechanisms (e.g. ftp) Access to non-Unix platforms do not have

good multi-user support PC/MAC lack general concept of several user

access

Prerequisites You should be comfortable with the

client/server concepts of the X-windows environment

If not, review “Introduction to X windows” http://www.strath.ac.uk:80/CC/Courses/oldXC/

xc.html VNC server and viewer installed on both local

and remote machines Configurations you will encounter

1. Local PC/MAC accessing remote UNIX system2. Local UNIX system accessing remote PC/MAC3. Local UNIX system accessing remote UNIX

system

Download site http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/

download.html CIS Unix platforms

Already installed by system administrator PC platform

Download and install as you would other PC software

Mac platform Download and install as you would other Mac

software