[kwlug-disc] Sharing desktop in Xubuntu

[Paul Nijjar]

On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 08:40:31AM -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 6:05 AM, Paul Nijjar <paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> 
> >
> > We are doing a refresh of our installation mechanisms at Computer
> > Recycling. One thing I would like to support is being able to securely help
> > people with their Linux installs remotely.
> 
> 
> There is also krfb, which is KDE's remote desktop sharing solution, using
> VNC.
> 
> http://www.kde.org/applications/system/krfb/
> 
> https://userbase.kde.org/Krfb

>From the above link: 

====

Though it is possible to use Krfb/Krdc across the Internet, cable
modem/routers at the host "end" must be set to forward port 5900 and
there are similar issues trying to cross corporate firewalls. 
====

so this solution has the same problems as other VNC solutions. I
cannot expect customers to open ports in their firewalls to let me in
(either permanently or temporarily). The usual solution for this
appears to be a reverse VNC connection using something like x11vnc,
but then we have to open a firewall port to accept incoming VNC
connections. 

Having something with open ports listening on the internet is
inevitable (I think?) but I would like that service to be minimal.
>From what I can tell the Teamviewer server is just a matchmaker; it
tells each client how to connect to the other one, but both clients
are making outgoing connections to the server, so neither needs to
open ports in its firewall.

- Paul 

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org