VNC client on Mac OS X

[Hans N.]

Hi,

This one is a bit off-topic but I had to notice yesterday that it is really difficult on Mac OS X to access an HVM instance using VNC. The problem of course is not Xen/ganeti but the VNC client itself I suppose. I have tried the following VNC clients:

- RealVNC viewer: doesn't even work, as soon as I connect it closes the whole application
- Chicken of the VNC: I can connect but the screen usually stays black, sometimes I can see my instance
- JollyVNC: screen mostly stays black or white but sometimes for example after resizing the screen I can get access to my instance

So my question is: is there a properly _working_ VNC client on Mac which I can use to access my Xen HVM (windows and OpenBSD) instances? Or maybe do I need some kind of special settings on the VNC client?

Best,
H.N.

[Michael Hanselmann]

Hi Hans

2012/11/1 Hans N. <hosting...@gmail.com>:

> So my question is: is there a properly _working_ VNC client on Mac which I
> can use to access my Xen HVM (windows and OpenBSD) instances? Or maybe do I
> need some kind of special settings on the VNC client?

In the past I have used Mac OS X' built-in VNC client. You can reach
it using Finder's “Connect to server” dialog (Cmd-K) when you enter
“vnc://$hostname” (can also be an IP address), or using the command
line tool “open” (“open vnc://…”). On Mac OS X 10.8, maybe also
earlier versions, the client application is located at
“/System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app”

Michael

[Rob Lampe]

Hi Han,

We have found that Jolly's Fast VNC and Chicken will work fine in Mac OS X. The trick is you have to disable hextile encoding.

--
Rob Lampe

Tranquil Hosting / RootBSD

www.tqhosting.com

www.rootbsd.net

[Martín Beauchamp]

Hi Hans,

Over here we take advantage of the Mac's X11 server and use X11 Forwarding over SSH. So you "ssh -Y username@nodename" and "vncviewer -AutoSelect=0 -FullColor 127.0.0.1:PORTNUMBER &"

nodename is the node running he instance.

You find PORTNUMBER with 'gnt-instance info | grep "console connection:"'

This gets you an easy encrypted console and easy access control to VNC (if you can't ssh, you can't VNC).

Best,
Martín 

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[Hans N.]

Hi Martin & Rob,

Many thanks for your suggestions. Indeed I managed to get JollyVNC working by disabling hextile encoding but didn't find that parameter in Chicken VNC.

I very like your solution Martin, which is adds an the SSH encryption to the whole connection, just need to test to see that it's not too slow. In fact your command line gave me exactly what I wanted: the options to my VNCViewer which make it finally also work. So for everyone else out there if you are using RealVNC viewer you need to turn AutoSelect OFF and FullColor ON, else you won't be able to connect properly to an HVM instance.

Best,
H.N.