Mac Server Series: Setting Up VNC On Your Mac
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In this episode, we see how to set up VNC on your Mac Server.
VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It allows you to “take over” the screen of your server and work as if you were sitting in front of your server. This is useful in maintaining your server, and also helping out your family or friends on their computer issues.
This tutorial will show how to set up the VNC server and the VNC client.
Shownotes:
Wikipedia: VNC- More on how VNC works
OSXVnc- A free VNC server. This is only necessary for those running Pre-Tiger OS X and those who want to set up more than one machine on the same network.
Chicken Of The VNC The free VNC client used in the tutorial
IP Widget- A very useful widget to find the ip address of your machine. Works equally well on your parent’s machine.
You can watch this tutorial here
August 28th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Brian,
An excellent tutorial. I look forwards to more as you go along. They certainly make sure that I know the basics whilst also touching on the more technical possibilities. Keep them coming.
Thanks
Dunx
August 28th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Hey Brian:
I just wanted to let you know that vnc over the net is a security issue unless you are using an encrypted tunnel. If people are VNC’ing into a machine, the password is sent unencrypted, hence it is easy for someone else to gain access to the machine.
I recommend that they set up a VPN first or create an SSH tunnel, and then vnc.
August 28th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Forget an IP widget, get BwanaDik. Terrible name, great little piece of software.
http://www.jschilling.net/sw_bwanadik.php
August 28th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Hey Brian,
Thanks for the info… I have two request.. Now that you are on VNC, can you show us how to setup an SSH Tunnel from client to server, and I was wondering if you will get into setting up a file server?
rob
August 29th, 2006 at 4:27 am
I would like to see a tutorial on the setup of the built-in FTP server. The initial setup is fairly basic, but there are many features that can be configured that are not obvious (i.e. change port from 21 to something else). It would be nice to see a simple solution for this.
August 29th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Brian
Great tutorials! - I am saving them to disk to reference them later as well as viewing them now. I second the request for information about how to setup an SSH Tunnel from client to server.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Thanks for these tutorials, they got me thinking about how to connect to multiple computers on my home network. I have two mini’s, I’m using dyndns to get my internet IP. In order to connect to them both from outside, on the router I forwarded port 5900 to one mini and 5901 to the other. While I could connect through port 5900, I was not able to connect through 5901. I found that Apple Remote Desktop only works on port 5900 (unless someone knows how to change it). I used OSXvnc on the second mini, set it to 5901 and was able to connect to them both using Chicken of the VNC.
August 31st, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Brian:
The latest version of Chicken of the VNC will run any mac. The problem you run into is that some versions of OSX only open Apple Remote Desktop port 3283 on the apple firewall and not 5900 as well. Some do both. Open port 5900 on the mac mini’s that don’t work with the latest verson on Chicken and you should be good to go.
September 5th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Does anyone know when the next lesson is coming out?
September 5th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Rob, It’ll be out today. I took the day off for Labor Day yesterday.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Brian,
If the Mac firewall is on, then your instructions open up the Apple Remote Desktop port just fine, but not the VNC ports (5900-). To open the VNC ports you need to got to the firewall, press “new”, and select “VNC” from the ports combo box. That will open up 5900-5902. If you need more ports, select ‘other’ and enter ports manually.
I’ve had good fortune with B4. It has the added feature of finding Rendezvous servers automatically.
December 10th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
I have been unable to get the Chicken to work. My set up is two macs (Mirror Door and Powerbook running 10.4.8) networked to an airport base. I have tried a couple of versions of the chicken 2.0b2 and 2.0b4. The machine with chicken on “sees” the other mac on the server list with the correct IP but times out when trying to connect. It sure seems odd that the port number shows 5900 when the info in the sharing preferences shows that apple remote is working through 3238.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:22 am
Hello. Had to figure everything out on my own and found the chicken program. Works great. Your site is very impressive and well put together. However, my only query is how to transfer data via VNC. I can do this by establishing a network with the other computer but to do it all in one would be nice. I hear about a clipboard, is this the answer? If you have a moment to answer that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for the site,
Luke
December 29th, 2006 at 12:25 am
in Tiger / apple remote desktop how do i send the remote to a computer that has the vnc listner on it?
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I set up VNC on my macbook, but I would like to log-in from a PC at my office. Can you recommend a PC version of Chicken of the VNC (or an equivalent) that I can run on my office PC? Many thanks for the excellent tutorials.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:10 am
I also would like to know how to setup the VNC client, but for win98. I am looking to control my mac mini with my old laptop running win98. Thanks for you help.
February 18th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I have a tutorial setup that makes setting up VNC through a SSH Tunnel pretty easy.
http://www.jklinephd.com/vnc_through_ssh/index.html
It works for me.
Jeff
February 25th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I FINALLY know how to do it!!!!!!!
March 7th, 2007 at 11:06 am
how do i use my mac to control pc?? i can use pc to connect to mac but how do i do it the other way round??
March 11th, 2007 at 9:11 am
You set up a VNC server on the Windows machine. Use RealVNC (Free) or TightVNC.
http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/4.1/winvnc.html
Jeff
April 16th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Note on Pam’s comment:
Although it likely doesn’t affect VNC at all, it’s worth noting there appears to be a typo in some versions of Mac OS X’s default “Apple Remote Desktop” firewall rule.
Some versions of the firewall rule state they open port 3238.
The rule *should* open 3283.
The solution is to create a new firewall rule for ARD with the proper ports listed. Without the correct rule, it does exactly what you describe.
I knew this, and yet got hit by it again recently with ARD 3.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:58 am
Dipesh,
If you want to control ANY windows computer from Mac, use Logmein at logmein.com and set up the systems there! BUT they do NOT have any mac version for which you can control the Mac via a windows machine
They are ‘working’ on it but don’t have a timeframe for it. I have been using the program for more than a year now and it works great!! EVEN the FREE version works as expected! IF more people bug them maybe the Mac OSX version will come sooner!!!?
Hope that helps, I am STILL looking for an easy way to control Windows AND Macs in a mixed crosstown environment EASILY!! and without major configuration LIKE Logmein… ANYONE???
April 24th, 2007 at 3:12 am
Very interesting tutorial. Maybe the problems I had were due to using Chicken b4, I’ll try b2.
here’s another approach that can work better in that it requires less of the person at the server end. I have a static IP address, my friend’s is dynamic. I asked her to run VineServer using reverse connection and entering my fixed IP address (so she has no need to look at Dashboard widgets). I could even have sent her an AppleScript that started VineServer and entered my IP address, so she would have nothing to do except double-click on the script.
And then I set Chicken to Listen for Server.
I got a connection ok (I had to enable port forwarding on port 5500 on my computer for this). It took a long time, but that’s expected. But after I had seen her desktop, and moved the mouse on her desktop, which she could see, nothing else seemed to work. I could not see what she was doing, and when I tried to do things nothing happened.
Any ideas as to whether I am missing something or if it is a Chicken problem?
May 7th, 2007 at 4:41 am
I also would like to know how to setup the VNC client, but for win98,xp,win2000. I am looking to control my mac mini with my old laptop running . Thanks for you help.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:11 am
[…] Mac Server Series: Setting Up VNC On Your Mac » Free Mac Blog (tags: osx) […]
August 29th, 2007 at 5:24 am
I’m wondering if there’s a way to connect to the VNC server via a web browser. Right now on the PC’s that I manage, I’ve installed tightvnc (tightvnc.com) and it creates a java app that you can run and manage the “server” computer on any computer as long as it’s connected to the web. so you would essentially go to the URL… http://localhost:5800 and that would run it all.
Is there anything like that for OSX? That would be the ideal solution for my needs, as I may need access from any OS.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:04 am
[…] Setting Up VNC On Your Server- an earlier tutorial that is referenced in this video. […]
September 28th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I have one PPC Mac mini and and Intel Mac mini. I want to use the Intel mini to control the PPC mini. As they are a few centimeters apart, I would prefer a physical connection rather than via the Web.
Joining the 2 minis with a Firewire cable would enable me to access the “remote” mini’s HD, but not to use it as a computer, which VNC apparently can do.
Can VNC be used with the Firewire crossover cable?
There must be a simple way of doing this. Do you know how I can do it?