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How to get server to work with repeater?

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SuperTurtle
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Joined: 2006-02-27 11:31

How to get server to work with repeater?

Post by SuperTurtle »

I kind at a set of cross roads here again, and I really feel guilty coming to this group to ask for help. I am a person that used to answer questions here, and am quite good at setting up network stuff.

I been using Single Click for a number of years, and when vista came out, it ran poor so I jumped over to PcHelpWare which ran MUCH better for me.

Trying to setup ultraVnc as a server on a computer that uses my repeater.

I shall mention a few things:

Using single click, or pchelpware…I can help that person on that computer no problem at all, and have done so many times over the last few years. Even now, SC or PcHelpware works fine when they click on the SC.Exe file. (again, sc, and pchelpwre works on that computer when I help them).

So, I want to use UltraVnc SERVER with the repeater so that we don’t have to modify their firewall. (documentation for this type of setup is VERY lacking for UltraVnc)

My version of SC and PcHelpware punch out on port 80 (this is likely why I NEVER had a problem with SC working for me). So, I want to be able to set the port that the UltraVnc server reaches out to my repeater as port 80. How this is done when it running as a service on a windows xp box is confusing to me. Again, setting the port that the server going to use is VERY lacking in documentation here.

How does one set what ports and address the server going to use? (note there is no one on that pc to “initiate” or add a new client on the server side).

In my notes (yes, I keep notes!!) I have and older batch file:

cd c:\PROGRA~1\ultravnc
winvnc -autoreconnect ID::2345 -connect 192.168.1.10::80

Note in the above, there is :: colons, but in sending those commands to UltraVnc, I get the dialog box popping up with the syntax description. So something is wrong here. Perhaps I supposed to only use “:” (one coln) here?

This computer will still have it standard windows logon, as when the person travels they dare not leave the computer simply logged on with no password. Again, how can the above “settings” I have run when the computer not even logged on as of yet?

The main challenge I have here is how does one setup the server (my customers pc) to initiate a connection “out” to the repeater? I even willing to place a batch file in the clients task scheduler that would “run” the above batch file but that don’t seem to work since the computer not yet logged on…

This should be just a rather simple and trouble free goal to accomplish and right now after two afternoons of VERY hard work, I not had anything work at all.

I am a good self starter, and as mentioned have set this stuff up a good many times, but am just stumped on the UltraVnc server setup now. There is simply no way that this software should make me feel so stupid. I just spent last week down on the Redmond campus with some Microsoft developers, and one of them said to me:

If software that I should know how to use makes me feel stupid, then that is just plain wrong and especially if I am an intelligent person.

It is funny, but he is right. Anything that makes VERY intelligent people like me fell dumb means there is some very wrong here (and, I willing to admit that I am the problem here!!).

Anyway. I guess there should be some type of dialog box for the settings when running as a service. (it would be just so simple this way).

I just had a client travel to Japan, and unfortunately, after spending 2 afternoons I was still unable to get this to work for them. I don’t care too much about me having been made to look like a fool, but I really did let this client of mine down today and that I do care about...

Anyway, how to get these server settings to “take” and stay before the machine has booted is a mystery to me…

I am willing to concede that using the repeater can’t work since the server has to initiate the connection. If this is the case, the does anyone have a suggestion for a product that will allow the above setup?

Super Turtle.
YY
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Posts: 996
Joined: 2006-11-13 15:11

Re: How to get server to work with repeater?

Post by YY »

This is easy with uvnc 1.0.5.x server.

Here is what s/b done in the setup:
1. You have your repeater running & reachable via internet,
  (I suupose you need to logon client's pc via internet), and
  the WAN IP of the repeater is rr.rr.rr.rr, or it has a host name like rrr.com
2. The UVNC server is installed on the client's pc. and working properly.
3. The Firewall at client's pc/network is properly configured.
  (i.e. the firewall(s) will allow UVNC server to make outbound connection on port 80)
4. To make the UVNCserver KEEP ON CONNECTING TO A REPEATER AUTOMATICALLY.
  Just edit the file "ultravnc.ini" (at the same installation folder of UVNC),
  Locate the statement "service_commandline=", change it to:
........
........
service_commandline=-autoreconnect ID:2345 -connect rr.rr.rr.rr:80
........
........
With the about service_commandline setting, the UVNC server will keep on connect to the repeater when it is running.

Of course, after you edit the "ultravnc.ini", you need to restart the UVNC service, or reboot the pc for making the new setting be effective.

I believe you know how to config the VNCviewer and Repeater for the connection.

Hm..... Do you remember you had asked the same question on [post=54760]How can I have vncserver initiate/add new client on startup?[/post]
Last edited by YY on 2009-03-12 03:09, edited 2 times in total.
SuperTurtle
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Posts: 48
Joined: 2006-02-27 11:31

Re: How to get server to work with repeater?

Post by SuperTurtle »

Thank you very kindly for you help. (and, yes…I did ask this question before, and I did get this to work before!).

However, coming off this train wreak…I could not get anything to work. I simply went over and over my notes and nothing seemed to work.

I now been playing on my home network for the last few hours and have made progress.

I had noticed that a few times when I logged off the windows xp box (vnc server) that the client connected very briefly. So that pointed me to that this SHOULD work, but something else was at play.

So, I decided to re-download the repeater and try that. For some reason, the old repeater is about 159,144 bytes. The new one is only 72bytes. When one runs this new smaller repeater it does not show the icon in the system tray (and nor does it give you options to set the ports being used). This new repeater thus did not work with my port settings. (it does run however as a “console” application in logging mode by default – so, this repeater has been changed since the last time I downloaded a copy).

So, I dug up a older repeater (version 104) and it now my test machines work.

So this problem been narrowed down to that I had been using the pc-helpware version of the repeater that was the problem here.

I was REALLY quite sure that the pchw version of the repeater worked with UltraVnc for me in the past – apparently that was not the case or I am just simply wrong about this, or it is simply not the case now. Whatever is the case, this is the problem.

The existing repeater that I just downloaded 5 minutes ago don’t work since it does not give options to set the ports.

However an older copy of the repeater DOES WORK.

So my problem here is narrowed down to the pc helpware version of the repeater. I will just have to test if the UltraVnc version of the repeater I now using will work with PCHW.

Once again thank you very kindly.

I will have to do some more testing here, but my solution here is to not use the pchw version of the Repeater (which I can only hope I do NOT need for those people that I have using use pchw + repeater right now).


Super Turtle.
YY
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Posts: 996
Joined: 2006-11-13 15:11

Re: How to get server to work with repeater?

Post by YY »

You are right! The new repeater available at the download page is non-usable.
So far no a single piece of document regarding it is released.

But the original PHW Repeater has a bug when working with UVNC, and the fixed version is released too. Please reference [topic=14406]this thread[/topic] for the findings about this issue, where you can see the download link of a repeater which compatible with both UltraVNV/SC/PcHelpWare.
Last edited by YY on 2009-03-12 08:03, edited 1 time in total.
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