I'm trying to set up a VNC client on my P800. I know it can be done, since others have There was a program that did it better, but it had a proprietary server that didn't work very well.

So I'm trying to use the one that uses free VNC servers. This raises two questions:

1) I want to use Tight VNC. I appologize for not knowing, but how the hell do I compile something???

2) there seem to be problems running VNC servers on computers that are both on networks behind routers and on ISPs with dynamic IPs.

Now, I can use IP Monster to keep track of my dynamic IP address for me, and my local IP doesn't change, so I know that one. So what should I do to go about getting this whole thing set up??

I appreciate any help...

I assume you're running Windows. You needn't compile anything. Just grab the self-installing package.

I assume you want to be able to connect to a VNC server that's behind your router/firewall from elsewhere on the internet. You've taken care of the first problem of knowing what your IP address is. The second problem is getting the VNC client's request to be forwarded along to the PC that's running the VNC server. This requires you to configure your router/firewall. You want to forward TCP port 5900 (which is the standard port for VNC) on your router/firewall to your PC. Exactly how you do this will depend on the particular router/firewall, but it should be reasonably obvious, I would imagine.

Note that VNC authentication is not well encrypted, so anyone who can listen in on your traffic can then get in control of your PC. This may or may not be an issue, but it's something to consider. I'm sure there are sites out there that talk more in-depth about VNC security issues than I'm prepared to here.

Thanks for the help. Yeah, I'm a bit concerned with it. I suspected it may be a security issue. I'll give it a go, I suppose.

I have a Linksys router connected to the cable modem. I don't know how much of a firewall that creates, but I'll look around the admin page for it and see if I can find TCP settings.

Thanks again.

Technically, all such routers must be firewalls to some extent. And I've never seen one that didn't have at least some rudimentary port forwarding abilities.

Thanks a bunch for the help. I got it working on all 3 programs available for the P800. It's slow, as would be expected, but if I reeeeally need something off my home machine, I can get it I did find the port settings in the router admin panel. The ports needed were different for these programs, though.

One last question that is pretty unrelated. I have several icons in my sys tray that I would like to get rid of. How do you get rid of the network indicator that warns that no network connection is present? I've got two of those now, in addition to the Wifi icon.

*edit*
ooo, 39000th OT post. neat

I haven't looked too closely of late, but my recollection was that the VNC authentication was quite secure -- it's the session itself (screen data transfers, keystrokes, mouse movements, etc..) that have zero security.

Cheers

Hmmm. Looking at the protocol spec, it appears to be a (single) DES challenge-response thing, so you're right. That should be reasonably secure. Maybe it was something else I was thinking about, but I could have sworn it was related to the password. Maybe how it's stored on the server? Of course, that's irrelevant to network snooping.

More likely it's just passwords one types into a window inside of a VNC session.. not much security there.

That may be true. Well, it certainly is true, but I mean that I could have sworn the security for the VNC password itself was a questionable part. Then again, my brain's been known to play tricks on me before.

Oohh..

Just managed to set this up between a desktop behind a router on a dynamic ip hosting a session running on a notebook dialed up to the internet via my bluetooth T610.

Very cool, very slow.

Absolutely

The only use I was intending for this excercise was if I forgot a file at home and needed it right away with no other way to get it.

This way, I can pretty easily send myself a file in an email. It would probably only take about 5 minutes