HOW-TO Secure Remote Access - Hamachi+VNC

[slk230mb]

Hey, this is my first post, and I am a new Ubuntu user. I use hamachi on my windows machines and want to install on my liunx configuration. In following the how to, I get hung up on the sudo make install, it returns "sudo: make: command not found". What am I doing wrong? Help please.

edit - i installed the make command, now I'm stuck initializing using this command sudo hamachi-init -c /etc/hamachi

[zenobia]

I followed this HOW-TO, and everything seems to be working, except for one problem. This problem also occurs when I am just VNC'ing into the PC on the local network without Hamachi.

For some reason, every now and then, I will fire up VNC and attempt to connect to the host PC. VNC never gets as far as asking for the password, and just seems to hang. The last time this happened, I grepped for Xvnc and it appeared to be running, but I believe it may have been running/stuck from the last VNC session.

I am not able to duplicate this consistently but it happens frequently. One morning, I fire up the PC and attempt to login remotely, and it does not work. The next morning, I fire up the PC and attempt to login remotely, and it works on the first go.

Today, everything was running smoothly, until I logged off earlier when going out for lunch. Upon my return, I can no longer VNC into the remote PC anymore.

Anyone have any ideas on what this could be? I am running Ubuntu Breezy on an Athlon XP 2800, with 1 gig of ram, using the latest versions of vnc and Hamachi (the presense of Hamachi seems irrelevant). Also worthy of note is that the same problem happens on my other Ubuntu box as well.

[Gaimlz]

Very good howto. It worked fine for me

[KingOfNowhere]

slk230mb -> if you just successfully "sudo make install" on hamachi, you now need to 'sudo tunecfg' and then follow sections (1.C) and (1.E) of my guide. that should help you through the rest of the setup and help you install a nice GUI to use with Hamachi.

zenobia -> for my guide, vnc is setup to work with gnome and GDM (gnome graphical login). so you have to make sure your are using GDM and have XDMCP enabled (section 2.A of my guide), this allows vnc to use GDM to login. so make sure of that and also double check your vnc server settings, and also make sure your firewall is not blocking incoming connections to the server.

i hope this helps you guys.

- KoN

[zenobia]

King of Nowhere -> Thanks for the response. However, let me clarify what the problem is. I have XDMCP enabled, and everything is setup exactly per the HowTo instructions. The issue is that sometimes it will work, sometimes it will not. I can not find any rhyme or reason as to why one day it will work perfectly when the PC is started up, the next day it wont, or it will work part of the day then fail later on during the same day. I have also re-verified the vnc server settings. There is no firewall running on that linux box as I have a router/firewall combination handling everything - in addition to that, I will have these problems when trying to connect from the same LAN, nevermind trying to connect remotely from another location on the Internet.

For instance, just this morning, I fired up the PC and went in to work. I attemped to connect from here, and VNC just fails with no errors. I ssh'ed into the box, stopped xinetd, did a killall for Xvnc, restarted xinetd, and this time VNC worked. Any ideas?

[zenobia]

It is also worth noting that when VNC fails, Xvnc starts to use 99% of the cpu according to top. In the other thread about setting up resumable VNC sessions, another individual has the same problem that I do, and is stuck as well.

[lanceo]

Hi,
Great howto. I'm having problems - when connecting to the vncserver locally, I get challenged to input my vnc password, and once i do, i just get a grey screen with a cursor that looks like an X. Googling around gives a suggestion that I alter my ~/.vnc/xstartup file to add the window manager that I want, but I don't seem to have one.

I have just installed the latest Ubuntu 6.01 that comes with Xfce as the window manager. Does anyone know what i should edit in order to allow me to log in via VNC?

Apparently I have GDE installed (dunno how to utilize it) and kde, but xfce is on by default.

cheers,
Lance

[lanceo]

Hi,
Great howto. I'm having problems - when connecting to the vncserver locally, I get challenged to input my vnc password, and once i do, i just get a grey screen with a cursor that looks like an X. Googling around gives a suggestion that I alter my ~/.vnc/xstartup file to add the window manager that I want, but I don't seem to have one.

I have just installed the latest Ubuntu 6.01 that comes with Xfce as the window manager. Does anyone know what i should edit in order to allow me to log in via VNC?

Apparently I have GDE installed (dunno how to utilize it) and kde, but xfce is on by default.

cheers,
Lance

Ok, after I rebooted, the login screen for xbuntu finally showed it's beautiful face! And I could log in - i didn't need to mess with the xstartup file (not that I could find it!). It just worked. And then intalling hamachi 9.9.9 onto my windows XP box, I was able to connect using the realVNC 4 viewer client and using the hamachi ip address - the hamachi gui in windows shows the ip addresses of every computer in your network quite clearly! So now I am a happy camper!

Thanks for the great howto, KingofNowhere!

Cheers,
Lance

[edblah]

hi. im getting the following errors when i run sudo apt-get install vnc4server xinetd

edblah@linux:~$ sudo apt-get install vnc4server xinetd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
vnc4server: Depends: xserver-common but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages

how do i fix this?

[imaiden22]

i got myself a little problem myself too, i tried getting ghamachi to start up, and the gui comes up but then gives me a message saying that hamachi could not be started. the first few times this happened so i gave up with the gui and went on to sucessfully install vnc or so i think because testing it locally gives me that gray screen that lanceo was reffering to with the X as the cursor, any suggestions?

btw, im running ubuntu dapper with gnome, not xfce