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Ask HN: How do I get VNC access to a remote machine via a browser?

3 points by yekim ↗ HN
Hi HNers,

I'm teaching my 10 year old son how to program in Python. His teachers have approved the use of school time to work on specific programming projects. Problem is, the school district IT policies are restrictive and do not allow installs on their netbooks without an onerous, time-consuming review process.

Do any of you know some creative, preferably free, ways that would enable VNC-level access to a remote machine via a web browser? This would allow us to bypass the need to use school computers for IDE installs, work storage, etc.

I figure there's gotta be some sort of freeware app that should allow me to set that up. Ideally, he'd be able to have full console access, save his work, Python IDLE access, etc.

Open to any and all ideas...

Cheers, yekim

[Edits: Changed title and question content to "VNC" instead of "console" based access to better reflect intent.]

10 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 27.9 ms ] thread
samlev
You could probably use/utilise the services which let you run code (like http://codepad.org/).

Not perfect, but it would let you do the job of "executing code" without needing anything more than a browser.

yekim
Cool idea. Thanks for sharing. Probably a little too basic for what I'm after. He's already familiar with Python IDLE, so I want to keep him on that track if at all possible.
pitchups
You could use the free edition of VNC http://realvnc.com
yekim
I'd considered something like that. However, I thought you still had to download, install the VNC app, thus putting us right back where we started - up against the onerous school district IT policies. I did a little more digging and found this: http://www.realvnc.com/support/javavncviewer.html. If I set up a server and run with their free edition of Java VNC viewer, will this work?

Are there any open source alternatives to this?

pitchups
Yes you should be able to run Vnc from a browser using the java viewer. I have done this in the past - when VNC was free and open source. However, it appears they have now gone to a paid model. You would have to make sure the school allowed remote access via the VNC port 5802 - their firewall might block access to it. I also found VNC to be relatively slow for screen updates. If the school district is using Windows (as many do), you could also use the Windows Remote Desktop client from the Netbook to access a Remote Windows machine set up as the server. You would need to install the Remote Desktop service on the remote machine, and enable it. If you had fixed IP you could access it via the IP, else you can use a dynamic DNS service to map it to a domain name and access it. Remote Desktop is very fast over broadband connections.
yekim
Thanks for the follow-up. I hadn't considered Windows Remote Desktop. That might work, if I can find a way to easily setup a remote machine. Never heard of "dynamic DNS". Sounds like I've got some more investigating to do...
itwerks4me
webmin has a shell console as well.
yekim
Never heard of webmin. Thanks for sharing! I checked it out. Unfortunately, it looks a little too basic for my needs. I realized after reading this comment last night that I'm after more than just console access...
cpt_yesterday
Haven't tried these yet but they're HTML5 so no installation. School computer support maybe be a little difficult. One is pay for and the other is free.

Guacamole http://guac-dev.org/

ThinVNC http://www.cybelesoft.com/thinvnc/

Andrew

yekim
Thanks for the ideas! ThinVNC is out, mostly due to cost. I ran across Guacamole last night when I was doing some more digging, but I've never messed with it. I have no idea what browsers they are running on their netbooks and whether they support HTML5. But, now I can start asking the school some more questions...