Newbie Running ChunkVNC as a Service for First Time

[smgerber]

I spent quite some time figuring out how to tame WIN7's UAC. This is what worked for me and I'd like someone to tell me if this is the normal way to run as a service.

1. I connected to the Chunk server in the usual way.
2. I select from the server icon "run as service".
3. My session gets disconnected.
4. I run Chunk Viewer and enter the ID from the previous session.
5. I get reconnected and begin receiving some UAC prompts that I can now finally respond to. (I observed that "uvnc_service") was running.
6. I'm now through with my first foray into "running as a service" so I remove the service and am then disconnected.

I never saw an explanation of how to do this and would like to know if the above steps were completely predictable to you. I didn't know how to reconnect to the first session and so I ran the Chunk Instant Support at the server PC and got an error that another instance of VNC was running. This is where I spent the most time. Out of desperation I finally launched my Chunk Viewer and entered the last session's ID and then it worked. Should I have read about this somewhere? It's not really intuitive for a Newbie. I'll kick myself if I caused all this grief and wasted time by not reading something I should have.

Thanks very much for any opinions regarding my experience.

Best ... Sam

[supercoe]

Everything you've explained is typical behavior.
I guess I'll have to clarify the installation guide when I talk about installing the service.

[smgerber]

Supercoe, thanks for letting me know that I did the best that I could given the absence of a tutorial. I've continued my exploration of running as a service and now have a new question and a request for your wish list.

Question:

I'm thinking that it may be very convenient to leave the service enabled indefinitely for those people we support on an ongoing basis. I just did a test where I disabled the repeater on my computer, waited a period of time and then re-enabled it. I wanted to see if the uvnc_service would retry a connection to my repeater without a reboot, and I was very happy to see that it did.

It seems you've provided an ease-of-use vehicle for us to connect quickly to anyone requesting future support. All we need to do is assign a meaningful ID when we install the service and then write into a log the person who's associated with that ID.

What was your intent for this feature? Did you expect the majority of users to remove Instant Support after the session was over or did you expect them to leave the service installed, for the future? Now, regardless of what you intended, can you give me a best guess on the percentage of users that leave it installed? A related question is whether leaving that service enabled would have any noticeable impact on the smallest computer while it's running but not being used. Also, are there firewall considerations when the service attempts a connection to the repeater?

Wish List Request:

People who leave the service installed will need more than your desktop icon to remove the service at a time in the future. It likely will be gone by then. In my opinion you'll need to provide a removal program or command file that can be file transferred for execution, provided the user left the code intact in "Program Files". You might also consider adding the removal function to the Start Programs menu. That will take more effort to remove than the desktop icon.

What do you think of this request?

Later ... Sam

[supercoe]

Currently I recommend not to leave the service installed for a long period of time mainly because in the past I and other users have had problems with the service reconnecting after a long period of time.
All I can say is give it a try an let us know how it works out for you.

Keep in mind that I designed the software around how I use it to support customers on a per incident basis so the current thought process behind InstantSupport is a get in and get out situation for fixing problems.

What you've requested is something that others have wanted for some time and in the future I hope to have a better solution for those who want permanent installs.


Also, are there firewall considerations when the service attempts a connection to the repeater?
Only if you have a firewall that blocks outgoing connections.

[JonD]

Personally, I would be concerned about security with having the service running 24/7. In theory it's secure but having had a hacker mess with a web site that I maintain (even though I've followed good security protocols), I know that things get broken.

Having a client come back to me with a problem based upon access to their computer by a hacker would worry me.

Having said that, I have kept a service running for a couple of days without issues by scheduling a task that stops and restarts the service once or twice a day.

JonD

[crashn]

I absolutely love this ChunkVNC! It works awesome! Good work guys!
I am currently using it to provide support for friends and family. I have only one concern regarding security. If the server service is left running on a customers computer what would a hacker have to know to connect? Do they only have to know the session id or do they also have to log into the repeater with the password?

[supercoe]

Thanks for the love.

No security is perfect but a "hacker" would need to know quite a bit to get into their computers.

1) They would need to know where your repeater is first.
2) They would need to guess what ID number was used.
3) They would need to guess the password.

Although I don't recommend leaving the service installed for a long period of time (because of connection issues) I'm glad it works well for you.


For maximum security you could run the repeater on your local LAN and don't forward the Viewer port.
This would only allow server connections (InstantSupport) to make a connection to the repeater from the outside world.
Then you put ChunkViewer in LAN mode and connect to it locally!

[crashn]

Further to my previous post, I have noticed that when the server service is running, after a few hours or the next day (not sure exactly how long) I cannot connect. As soon as the user restarts their computer I can then connect. I'm assuming the way the server works is to send a heartbeat signal to the repeater to let it know that the service is running, etc. If this is correct then the heartbeat signal seems to stop after a period of time.

[supercoe]

As stated in the FAQ it's not recommended to leave the service installed permanently at this time because of this issue.
It's a bug in the UltraVNC server that it stops reconnecting after a period of time.

You could try replacing the winvnc.exe file in the SRC directory with a newer version and compiling again. Sorry I haven't had time to fix this issue.