Re: [Xen-devel] VM Remote access options

[Mark A. W. <mar...@cl...>]

> > VNC - comes in two flavors of server.  The original at&t server supports
> > a primative window manager and no desktop to the remote system.

The RealVNC / TightVNC servers start an X server that outputs directly to the 
VNC server and onto the network.  There is no physical display device (which 
you couldn't have anyhow in dom != 0).  You can disconnect and connect to 
this session and it will persist in the meantime.  You can also have multiple 
users connected.

The vncserver command may start a nasty window manager for you but there's 
some VNC configuration file you can use to change this and run KDE.  We've 
run KDE over TightVNC and found it works great.

It's efficient because VNC *is* the display device and doesn't have to 
screen-scrape.  Also, it can start a new X-windows session.

> > A more 
> > recent server is krfb found in the KDE tree.  This is the basis for so
> > called 'desktop sharing' features.  krfb forks the io on running kde
> > environment to the remote VNC client and thus depends on a running login
> > session.  It can not start a new login session.

The krfb is nice but (currently) has to poll the screen for updates, and is 
thus less efficient than the aforementioned server.  Future advances in the X 
server should eliminate this, however.

The krdc client is nicer than the standard VNC client.

Gnome 2.8 also has this feature and there's an X server mod on Sourceforge 
that'll give you this for any desktop you want, with the added bonus of 
avoiding screen scraping.  Again, only useful if you have an existing 
session.

> > When I mentioned bad performance of XN in an earlier post, I was refering
> > to test on a xen domain.   Over a regular network, it is quite snappy,
> > and over the internet, it is simple amazing.  It does not seem to be
> > happy on a domain system, however.

It probably should perform OK.  The forwarding of sound, printing, etc are 
also cool and not offered by the alternatives.  I take it this is using the 
commercial NX server?

Cheers,
Mark