Question:

Jerry Rash's VNC presentation at the December SCOUG meeting was really interesting, but some reason I can not recall all the details on how to set it up. How about an install cookbook?

Answer:

OK. How's this?

Download the software

• Download the VNC server . This is part that runs on the system to be controlled.
• Download the VNC viewer This is part that runs on the system that will do the controlling.

Install the server

Create a directory to hold the server. Unzip the contents of pmvnc-1.02-bin.zip, preserving directories.

Run install.cmd, the install program. This will create several desktop objects. These objects all run the same program, but the parameters differ for each object.

Configure the Server

The server must be started before you can use any of the other objects. The first time you start the server, the Settings notebook will display automatically. For now, all you need to do is select a password. Leave the other settings at their default values.

Install the viewer

Create a directory to hold the viewer code. Unzip the contents of pmvnc100.zip to this directory and the client is ready to run.

You might want to create Desktop objects for vncview.exe and vncview_e.txt.

Test the Installations

Start the server on the system to be controlled.

Start the viewer on a different system.

Enter the hostname:display parameters.

The hostname will be the value defined by HOSTNAME in config.sys. The display number will be 0 on eCS/OS2 system. Leave the options blank for now and click OK.

Select a password when prompted. If all goes well, the remote host's desktop will appear.

To adjust the connection, disconnect from the remote host or shut down the viewer, click on the control menu button to access the menu.

To shut down the VNC server, click the PM VNC Server Kill object

Tuning your setup

That's it.

There are lots of tuning options for special situations. If you have questions, you can ask Mr. KIA directly. You can also get help from the nice folks on the SCOUG-Help mailing list.

Question:

Jerry said that VNC alone is not a secure connection? What's the solution?

Answer:

The short answer is you can use ssh or stunnel. I'm out of time for now, so ask me later and I'll explain the setup details.

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