Can I use "standard" Winvnc & viewer with the PERL rptr?

[rcooke]

I'm trying to cut out the middle man (chunk).

Am I correct in my observation that Chunk is a wrapper that configures WinVNC.exe on the server to do a proxy or remote connection?

Using sys internal tools procexp, the command line appears to be:

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-autoreconnect ID:<client#><machine#> -connect repeater.ru:myport1  -run

or, in service mode, this line is added to ultravnc.ini:

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service_commandline=-autoreconnect ID:<client#><machine#> -connect repeater.ru:myport1

And there is a "-run_service" appended to that when it gets passed to winvnc.exe running as a service.

I configured the machines I have to support by installing the latest uVNC and configuring it as above, using a clever scheme to assign ID numbers.

I am running the PERL script that came in the ChunkVNC 3.2 package. (under FreeBSD)

On the client side, I use sys internal tools procexp to find the parameters being passed to the viewer:

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-proxy repeater.ru:myport2 ID:<client#><machine#> -quickoption 3 -keepalive 1

I created shortcuts to the viewer, one per machine looking like this:

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"C:\Program Files\UltraVNC\vncviewer.exe" /password LetMeIn -proxy repeater.ru:myport2 ID:<client#><machine#> -quickoption 1 -keepalive 1 -dsmplugin SecureVNCPlugin.dsm  -loglevel 12 -console

In another thread, I have learned why the "/password LetMeIn" is not working, so that comes out. I have to get the DSM plugin working to get access security, and traffic encryption as a bonus.

"-loglevel and -console" are just for testing and diagnostics, they come out when this goes live. I changed "-quickoption" to auto to test how well it does. So far so good.

Without the plugin enabled on either side, this seems to work. I can connect to a machine running from the ChunkVNC server (remote help), and I can use the "RemoteViewer" program to access machines actually running my uVNC setup server!

I think this is pretty cool. It lets me pre-configure the machines I need to support - regardless of location - to connect to the repeater, without getting the user to run the remote support program. For service techs, instead of having to lug around a pile of shortcuts (or list of ID numbers) I'm going to modify the PERL script to keep a POSTGRES data base record of active connections. This will let me use a Django web page to display a dynamic list of machines logged in so you just select the one you want to connect to from that web page and it spawns the viewer with the "right" arguments.

I'm posting this in case somebody out there with more experience knows a "gotcha" I have not hit yet! Plus I have not seen this explained anywhere else in this much detail, so it might be handy or educational to others.

[supercoe]

Wow, I don't know what to say... You've really missing the point of ChunkVNC.

Absolutely you can use a repeater without ChunkVNC. ChunkVNC is simply an AutoIt script that sets up the UltraVNC Server and Viewer, that's it.

Here is a list of the UltraVNC command line variables: http://www.uvnc.com/install/cmdline.html

You could have also just opened the .au3 scripts in the ChunkVNC\SRC directory to see how the connection is made.
These scripts are what make ChunkVNC what it is, the rest is just UltraVNC.


I'm going to modify the PERL script to keep a POSTGRES data base record of active connections.

Now this I'd like to see, others have attempted similar but AFAIK nothing has come of it. This would be a great addition to the software around here.

[rcooke]

Yeah, I read all the uVNC "documentation" first. Before I discovered Chunk.

What I have *really* done is learn how uVNC works by hacking Chunk and reading all of the AutoIT scripts too.



Which I'm going to claim just shows a hole in uVNC's documentation. It can't be that I'm a dolt.... heheheh

[supercoe]

Yea, documentation really sucks. There have been efforts to make it better but really the best thing is to just ask around here for help.

Good luck!

[B]

Wow indeed!

rcooke, I've always considered ChunkVNC a great "gateway drug" into figuring out an appropriate way to use the UltraVNC Repeater. (I had always found the various repeater "modes" and configuration options confusing.) But as supes says, you could very easily do it all with regular old UltraVNC.

Using procexp to gather that information is a nice, funny example of using the tools you know....

[supercoe]

funny example of using the tools you know

No kidding, this is a great example of the power you can achieve with sysinternal tools.

[rcooke]

Wow indeed!

rcooke, I've always considered ChunkVNC a great "gateway drug" into figuring out an appropriate way to use the UltraVNC Repeater. (I had always found the various repeater "modes" and configuration options confusing.) But as supes says, you could very easily do it all with regular old UltraVNC.

Using procexp to gather that information is a nice, funny example of using the tools you know....

Whew!

I'm relieved its not just me that uses Chunk to figure out uVNC usage!

[supercoe]

It took me a long time to figure out how all this crap works but when it does its a beautiful thing.