SASL support

[mikekaganski]

Hello.

Is it possible to implement SASL as an extension to the VNC protocol? It's very strange that a protocol doesn't support this standard. It would be very useful and would allow for, e.g., transparent authentication (single sign-on) using GSSAPI method of SASL, if implemented by client and server.

Of course, it's an extension, but maybe it's possible to negotiate this capability at the connection establishment stage to stay compatible with classic method? Or implement the extension in such a way that the client first tries the new method, and if unsuccessful, tries the old one, thus staying compatible though for price of doubling the handshake traffic and time (in the worst case). Maybe it's possible to specify a fake "password" that, if entered by viewer, would tell the server to start the SASL auth? Of course, such a "password" should be unlikely to be used by anyone, e.g. using non-printable characters and very long...

Thank you for your great effort.

[redge]

on v2 maybe possible and not before 2012 ...