VNC problems

[ZootHornRollo]

i have installed SSH server but still can't really make much use of it.

how do i run the above command? do i run it on the server or on the client?

got it!

[ZootHornRollo]

when trying to do anything over vnc or ssh i have to use the IP address (which changes if i reset my router) as the hostname is not recognised from either system.

is there a setting somewhere to make it work?

graham@graham-desktop:~$ vncviewer MusicBox:0
Couldn't convert 'MusicBox' to host address

[gigaferz]

log in to your router set up web page, and figure out a way to make your Internal ip address static,

[ZootHornRollo]

I managed to work out how to do that after posting that so one problem solved.

but it does not solve the hostname issue. any idea's how to get the hostnames to work?

[xc3ll]

There's a few ways to kinda do what you want. First requires you ssh tunnel your VNC connection, and is really easy to set up. The second way will do what you want, but not quite.

1st Way:

Do the thing with the router that giga said. (What you really wanna do is reserve a ip for the mac address of the NIC on your server. You can figure out it's NIC by typing 'ifconfig'. Its the number in the form of xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx next to HWAddr. Most routers allow this, and it sounds like you have this set up).

Next, go to your ~/.ssh folder, and use your text editor to change/create a file named config (full path should be ~/.ssh/config ). Make/add an entry in this form:

host MusicBox
Hostname <ip address>
User <your username>

After that, create an ssh tunnel to your musicbox,by using this command:

ssh - N -L 5900:localhost:5900 MusicBox

and then in a seperate terminal:

vncviewer localhost:0

This is the best way, since it'll also encrypt your VNC traffic, but if you're not concerned with anyone sniffing your packets over WiFi, then its not necessary.


You can also accomplish the same thing using DynDNS. They'll give you a free DNS name (something like musicbox.ath.cd I think). And then, you can tell your router to route traffic from that address to your musicbox(most routers have this capability), or you can install a app on your musicbox that will update dyndns's servers, and then port forward on your router.

that will allow you to do this:

vncviewer musicbox.ath.cd:0

This will allow you to run vnc from anywhere in the world, but I wouldn't suggest it, since your VNC traffic will be unencrypted.

If you do want this capability tho, you can use both of the methods I suggested in conjuction, ssh'ing to your new domain, and then pointing vncviewer to the localhost.

Hope this helps. I might have gotten the ssh command wrong. If it doesn't work, lemme know.