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A few gotchas I've encountered with using a repeater

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lns
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Posts: 12
Joined: 2011-07-05 23:04

A few gotchas I've encountered with using a repeater

Post by lns »

Hi all,

I've been working on a small project that incorporates a repeater, and I've combed through a bunch of different scenarios to try and make my setup foolproof. I've noticed a few things that I wanted to relay:

1) When using "service_commandline=-autoreconnect -connect <ip_address_of_repeater:5500> -id:1234" to automate repeater connection, and *also* using "DisableTrayIcon=1", I can connect fine the FIRST time with my viewer. Disconnecting and attempting a re-connect fails. I have verified that this has something to do with "DisableTrayIcon" by toggling it back and forth from 0 to 1, restarting the uvnc service, and trying multiple connects/disconnects. It works fine when the system tray icon is enabled, but not when it's disabled.

2) Using a repeater while using "service_commandline" option (as above), if I enter the wrong password, I will not be able to reconnect to the server. I have read a few other threads and most point toward the server having the problem with reconnecting to the repeater after a failed password attempt. This happens regardless of the "DisableTrayIcon" being enabled or disabled.

Is there any way of fixing this in the server to make repeater connections more stable?

Also, is there any way to change the system tray icon to something different? I want to use this with my customers, but if I can't reliably disable the systray icon, I'd like it to look a bit more friendly than a big eye staring at them. ;)

Thanks for any input, and I'm happy to do any testing/debugging if necessary to get these things resolved for the next release :)


Cheers,
Jordan

(P.S. this is with using Windows 2000 Professional as the server, btw)
YY
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Posts: 996
Joined: 2006-11-13 15:11

Re: A few gotchas I've encountered with using a repeater

Post by YY »

lns wrote:1) When using "service_commandline=-autoreconnect -connect <ip_address_of_repeater:5500> -id:1234" to automate repeater connection, and *also* using "DisableTrayIcon=1", I can connect fine the FIRST time with my viewer. Disconnecting and attempting a re-connect fails. I have verified that this has something to do with "DisableTrayIcon" by toggling it back and forth from 0 to 1, restarting the uvnc service, and trying multiple connects/disconnects. It works fine when the system tray icon is enabled, but not when it's disabled.
I cannot repeat this bug.

In my test, no matter what state of "DisableTrayIcon=" is, the server will reconnect automatically if the connection is dropped.

My test condition:
- UVNC server & viewer, both are 1.0.9.6.1, running on WinXP Prof.
- Had tested without DSMplugin, and SecureVNC plugin, both not showing your mentioned problem.


lns wrote:2) Using a repeater while using "service_commandline" option (as above), if I enter the wrong password, I will not be able to reconnect to the server. I have read a few other threads and most point toward the server having the problem with reconnecting to the repeater after a failed password attempt. This happens regardless of the "DisableTrayIcon" being enabled or disabled.
I guess your connection was done with SecureVNC plugin.

Some users had reported a bug regarding auto-reconnection with SecureVNC:
SecureVNCPlugin.dsm kill server reconnect to repeater???
Autoreconnect bug

Not solved yet.
lns
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Posts: 12
Joined: 2011-07-05 23:04

Re: A few gotchas I've encountered with using a repeater

Post by lns »

YY wrote:In my test, no matter what state of "DisableTrayIcon=" is, the server will reconnect automatically if the connection is dropped.

My test condition:
- UVNC server & viewer, both are 1.0.9.6.1, running on WinXP Prof.
- Had tested without DSMplugin, and SecureVNC plugin, both not showing your mentioned problem.
Interesting. Maybe it's a W2k thing? I'm not using any VNC plugins at all - I'm relying on SSH forwarding to provide my encryption (but wasn't even using that in my test network, just the viewer -> repeater -> server connection).
I guess your connection was done with SecureVNC plugin.
Nope, again I'm just using stock UVNC 1.0.9.6.1. However, I'm using the viewer under WINE (Debian Linux as the host), but I doubt that makes a difference. I can connect to anyone else (including SC sessions) just fine all day long in this environment.

I'm going to be deploying my little server to one of my clients, which has all WinXP Pro machines probably today or tomorrow. I'll be setting those machines up to automatically connect to the on-site repeater (ChunkVNC Linux Perl repeater is what I'm using btw) using the service_commandline I mentioned in the first post. If I can, I'll try it out on those and see if it happens. :) Thanks for your reply!


Cheers,
Jordan
YY
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Posts: 996
Joined: 2006-11-13 15:11

Re: A few gotchas I've encountered with using a repeater

Post by YY »

lns wrote:
YY wrote:I guess your connection was done with SecureVNC plugin.
Nope, again I'm just using stock UVNC 1.0.9.6.1. ........
...................
...................
I'll be setting those machines up to automatically connect to the on-site repeater (ChunkVNC Linux Perl repeater is what I'm using btw) using the service_commandline I mentioned in the first post.
Other than the OS, one of the big difference between your config & mine is the repeater:

You are using ChunkVNC Linux Perl repeater
I am using the native UltraVNC repeater.


viewer ===> UVNC_repeater <=== server

In this config, if not using SecureVNC plugin, the connection WILL NOT prompt for password input.


So if you possible, you may re-do your test with the UVNC repeater to see what then will be.
(Sorry I'm not able to do as test as your config. I know nothing on Linux or Perl).
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