VNC2Me

VNC2Me now allows translation to ANY language supported by MS Windows.

These things happen if you wake up in the middle of the night with a head full of code (yep, THAT IS how much of a geek I am), and can't go back to sleep until its working.

Everything that needs to be changed for translation into currently (and future) supported languages, can be done from the INI, by setting up the locale(s) and language in the INI file (as well as the translating everything).

This means that most of what I said in the the earlier "Translate VNC2Me" How-to article, has been rewritten.

Now anyone can translate vnc2me, but will they help us help others ???

if you want to help, let us know, as we can always use a new translator (or twenty).

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How did VNC2Me come to be, why did you build it ?

VNC2Me came about for several reasons.

• First and foremost was that a good "opensource" package that did almost exactly the same as VNC2Me just silently closed its source, without explanation or reason, and they started commercially selling their product. This annoyed us to no end, as they had promoted it to everyone as open source, then closed without changing names, or even notification or anything. then we discovered that they had removed all the source from sourceforge.net ... this is the creators right, but it annoyed us to the point we decided to create our own.
• I (aka JDaus) had created JDsVNC (with HEAPS of help from Budg) which was a simply a way to tunnel UVNC SC to my Linux box, allowing me to support friends and family securely. this project proved very successful and handy, but it was hard to keep updating the ssh host keys, server addresses and several other things that just annoyed me, so I felt it was time for a redesign ...
• My own need (in a previous job) to be able to use (and have others use) JDsVNC from any location (whether in the office or at home or a clients site) and dial into a clients site (without having the need or ability to modify port forwarding on remote routers.

After much searching, pulling my hair out and crying in the corner, I eventually pieced together a system that required much work to get setup on remote sites. this involved installing UVNC server, UVNC repeater and SSH tunnelling services on a "server" machine onsite (the server was often just a workstation that was left online 24/7) and setting up each part of that ... this took time to setup each part, having the server allow local connection, the repeater in a certain mode, and the SSH tunnelling application create a remote tunnel (on a pre-defined port).

After it was all setup, I was eventually able to connect to our ssh server (in the DMZ) open a Remote tunnel (with to connect to the same port that the site SSH was listening on, and connect to the site server (or any other workstation with UVNC setup on it) via the repeater.

As you can see, this was a pain to setup and maintain, I also found issues with sites dropping offline (the SSH tunnelling application just stopped responding, it was still running, and saying connected, but nothing coming out ...

It was at this time that I thought of creating a project to do all of what I needed, and ssh2me was born (eventually to be renamed to vnc2me with a few other names in between).

I would like to see other developers pickup on the ideas I have placed here, and make as many compatible applications as possible, but for now I am the only creator.

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• Description
• Downloads
• Screen Shots
• Features
• Security
• Products
• Future

Description

VNC2Me Products provide a secure way to control and view desktops across the internet, giving access to support personnel quickly and easily.

With built in secure file transfer and chat (windows only), VNC2Me makes supporting clients easy and quick, but best of all, its free and open source.

VNC2Me combines the strong (256bit) encryption (AES, Blowfish, 3DES & RC4 ciphers), and data integrity of the “Secure Shell” (SSH) protocol with the power and features of VNC range. VNC2Me utilises the “plink” (putty) application to provide the SSH connection, and “UltraVNC” (UVNC SC, UVNC Viewer, UVNC Server and UVNC Repeater) to provide the VNC desktop and Advanced features such as file-transfer.

VNC2Me is uses pre-existing applications (and techniques), groups them together to create (when completed) a complete range of remote support products. In simple terms, VNC2Me a wrapper application (at this time) that initiates an SSH tunnel (via plink), then creates a VNC connection through that tunnel (via UVNC).

VNC2Me is currently in BETA release and as such can be considered functional, but incomplete (and containing potential & known bugs).

Downloads

2008-09-07 VNC2Me SC Beta 0.1 Released ... Download VNC2Me to help us find the bugs prior to the official first release.

Features

VNC2Me has many Features, some of which include:

• Secure Communications over the internet using AES256 bit encryption as standard (various encryption ciphers are supported).
• SSH Compression minimises bandwidth usage (if needed) to allow remote connections over slow networks (or accross the globe).
• VNC2Me SC Creates a reverse VNC connection (server connects to viewer), for safety reasons.
• Open Source and free to use, modify, customise and re-distribute.

A Complete List of features Currently in VNC2Me can be found in the FAQs.

Security

The security of your computer systems are critical — it is more important than ever to secure all computer systems, That’s why VNC2Me SC has been designed with the following security features built-in.

1. VNC2Me SC Does NOT store anything on your computer (other than the original download).
2. VNC2Me SC Does NOT allow direct connection to your desktop. Creates a “reverse” VNC connection to the support technician using UVNC SC *¹*
3. VNC2Me SC Does NOT permanently change any settings on your computer (temporarily makes changes for better performance in Vista).
4. VNC2Me SC Does NOT allow multiple people to view your desktop at once, only one person at a time (Collaboration Server does allow multiple users to "view only").
5. Trusted Security through use of established applications and methods.

Products

VNC2Me Products include:

• VNC2Me SC - a quick-connect application for allowing imediate connection to support personel (under development)
• VNC2Me Collaboration - Allows multiple viewers to connect to one presenter (development started late 2008).
• VNC2Me Site - Allows access to numerous UltraVNC configured computers behind a firewall (planned development for 2009).

Future Features and development

A List of planned future features of VNC2Me can be found on the FAQs.

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I have been looking into hosting a free VNC2Me service, and prices for a dedicated machine (it doesn't need to be fast, or with large amounts of HDD space) start at approx $80 USD per month. I would love to do this, and frankly, can support that cost, but i'm not sure if people will actually use it ... what do you think ? if i build it, will they come ?

also if i do go down the dedicated host route, i would obviously be interested in recouping some some of the costs for this dedicated host by providing a VPS service, where its a dedicated IP, private to one organisation only, has dedicated CPU and memory etc ... similar to showmypc, but for cheaper (pricing between $5-$10 USD per month maybe)

Send me your thoughts on this please, and if anyone knows an ISP who would be interested in cutting the costs in exchange for some advertising, please let me know

JD

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