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README
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[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/LibVNC/x11vnc.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/LibVNC/x11vnc)
Copyright (C) 2002-2010 Karl J. Runge <[email protected]>
All rights reserved.
x11vnc README file Date: Mon Dec 27 20:58:57 EST 2010
The following information is taken from these URLs:
http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/index.html
http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/x11vnc_opts.html
...
they contain the most up to date info.
=======================================================================
http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/index.html:
_________________________________________________________________
x11vnc: a VNC server for real X displays
(to FAQ) (to Downloads) (to Building) (to Beta Test)
(to Donations) [PayPal]
x11vnc allows one to view remotely and interact with real X displays
(i.e. a display corresponding to a physical monitor, keyboard, and
mouse) with any VNC viewer. In this way it plays the role for Unix/X11
that WinVNC plays for Windows.
It has built-in SSL/TLS encryption and 2048 bit RSA authentication,
including VeNCrypt support; UNIX account and password login support;
server-side scaling; single port HTTPS/HTTP+VNC; Zeroconf service
advertising; and TightVNC and UltraVNC file-transfer. It has also been
extended to work with non-X devices: natively on Mac OS X Aqua/Quartz,
webcams and TV tuner capture devices, and embedded Linux systems such
as Qtopia Core. Full IPv6 support is provided. More features are
described here.
It also provides an encrypted Terminal Services mode (-create, -svc,
or -xdmsvc options) based on Unix usernames and Unix passwords where
the user does not need to memorize his VNC display/port number.
Normally a virtual X session (Xvfb) is created for each user, but it
also works with X sessions on physical hardware. See the tsvnc
terminal services mode of the SSVNC viewer for one way to take
advantage of this mode.
I wrote x11vnc back in 2002 because x0rfbserver was basically
impossible to build on Solaris and had poor performance. The primary
x0rfbserver build problems centered around esoteric C++ toolkits.
x11vnc is written in plain C and needs only standard libraries and so
should work on nearly all Unixes, even very old ones. I also created
enhancements to improve the interactive response, added many features,
and etc.
This page including the FAQ contains much information [*]; solutions
to many problems; and interesting applications, but nevertheless
please feel free to contact me if you have problems or questions (and
if I save you time or expense by giving you some of my time, please
consider a PayPal Donation.) Do check the FAQ and this page first; I
realize the pages are massive, but you can often use your browser's
find-in-page search action using a keyword to find the answer to your
problem or question.
SSVNC: An x11vnc side-project provides an Enhanced TightVNC Viewer
package (SSVNC) for Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X with automatic SSL
and/or SSH tunnelling support, SSL Certificate creation, Saved
connection profiles, Zeroconf, VeNCrypt, and built-in Proxy support.
Added features for the TightVNC Unix viewer: NewFBSize, ZRLE encoding,
Viewer-side Scaling, cursor alphablending, low color modes, and
enhanced popup menu; UltraVNC extensions support for: File Transfer,
Text Chat, Single Window, Server Input, and 1/n Scaling extensions,
and UltraVNC DSM encryption. The SSVNC bundle could be placed on, say,
a USB memory stick for SSL/SSH VNC viewing from nearly any networked
computer.
_________________________________________________________________
Announcements:
Important: If you created any permanent SSL certificates (e.g. via
"x11vnc -ssl SAVE ...") on a Debian or Ubuntu system from Sept. 2006
through May 2008, then those keys are likely extremely weak and can be
easily cracked. The certificate files should be deleted and recreated
on a non-Debian system or an updated one. See
http://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1571 for details. The same
applies to SSH keys (not used by x11vnc directly, but many people use
SSH tunnels for VNC access.)
FAQ moved: The huge FAQ has finally been moved to its own page. If you
are trying to follow someone's link to an FAQ once on this page it is
now a broken link. Try inserting the string "faq.html", e.g.:
from: http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/#faq-singleclick
to: http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/faq.html#faq-singleclick
Apologies for the inconvenience, unfortunately it is not possible to
automatically redirect to the new page since the '#' anchor is not
sent to the webserver.
_________________________________________________________________
Background:
VNC (Virtual Network Computing) is a very useful network graphics
protocol (applications running on one computer but displaying their
windows on another) in the spirit of X, however, unlike X, the
viewing-end is very simple and maintains no state. It is a remote
framebuffer (RFB) protocol.
Some VNC links:
* http://www.realvnc.com
* http://www.tightvnc.com
* http://www.ultravnc.com/
* http://www.testplant.com/products/vine_server/OS_X
For Unix, the traditional VNC implementation includes a "virtual" X11
server Xvnc (usually launched via the vncserver command) that is not
associated with a physical display, but provides a "fake" one X11
clients (xterm, firefox, etc.) can attach to. A remote user then
connects to Xvnc via the VNC client vncviewer from anywhere on the
network to view and interact with the whole virtual X11 desktop.
The VNC protocol is in most cases better suited for remote connections
with low bandwidth and high latency than is the X11 protocol because
it involves far fewer "roundtrips" (an exception is the cached pixmap
data on the viewing-end provided by X.) Also, with no state maintained
the viewing-end can crash, be rebooted, or relocated and the
applications and desktop continue running. Not so with X11.
So the standard Xvnc/vncserver program is very useful, I use it for
things like:
* Desktop conferencing with other users (e.g. code reviews.)
* Long running apps/tasks I want to be able to view from many places
(e.g. from home and work.)
* Motif, GNOME, and similar applications that would yield very poor
performance over a high latency link.
However, sometimes one wants to connect to a real X11 display (i.e.
one attached to a physical monitor, keyboard, and mouse: a Workstation
or a SunRay session) from far away. Maybe you want to close down an
application cleanly rather than using kill, or want to work a bit in
an already running application, or would like to help a distant
colleague solve a problem with their desktop, or would just like to
work out on the deck for a while. This is where x11vnc is useful.
_________________________________________________________________
How to use x11vnc:
In this basic example let's assume the remote machine with the X
display you wish to view is "far-away.east:0" and the workstation you
are presently working at is "sitting-here.west".
Step 0. Download x11vnc (see below) and have it available to run on
far-away.east (on some linux distros it is as easy as "apt-get install
x11vnc", "emerge x11vnc", etc.) Similarly, have a VNC viewer (e.g.
vncviewer) ready to run on sitting-here.west. We recommend TightVNC
Viewers (see also our SSVNC viewer.)
Step 1. By some means log in to far-away.east and get a command shell
running there. You can use ssh, or even rlogin, telnet, or any other
method to do this. We do this because the x11vnc process needs to be
run on the same machine the X server process is running on (otherwise
things would be extremely slow.)
Step 2. In that far-away.east shell (with command prompt "far-away>"
in this example) run x11vnc directed at the far-away.east X session
display:
far-away> x11vnc -display :0
You could have also set the environment variable DISPLAY=:0 instead of
using "-display :0". This step attaches x11vnc to the far-away.east:0
X display (i.e. no viewer clients yet.)
Common Gotcha: To get X11 permissions right, you may also need to set
the XAUTHORITY environment variable (or use the -auth option) to point
to the correct MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE file (e.g. /home/joe/.Xauthority.) If
x11vnc does not have the authority to connect to the display it exits
immediately. More on how to fix this below.
If you suspect an X11 permissions problem do this simple test: while
sitting at the physical X display open a terminal window
(gnome-terminal, xterm, etc.) You should be able to run x11vnc
successfully in that terminal without any need for command line
options. If that works OK then you know X11 permissions are the only
thing preventing it from working when you try to start x11vnc via a
remote shell. Then fix this with the tips below.
Note as of Feb/2007 you can also try the -find option instead of
"-display ..." and see if that finds your display and Xauthority. Note
as of Dec/2009 the -findauth and "-auth guess" options may be helpful
as well.
(End of Common Gotcha)
When x11vnc starts up there will then be much chatter printed out (use
"-q" to quiet it), until it finally says something like:
.
.
13/05/2004 14:59:54 Autoprobing selected port 5900
13/05/2004 14:59:54 screen setup finished.
13/05/2004 14:59:54
13/05/2004 14:59:54 The VNC desktop is far-away:0
PORT=5900
which means all is OK, and we are ready for the final step.
Step 3. At the place where you are sitting (sitting-here.west in this
example) you now want to run a VNC viewer program. There are VNC
viewers for Unix, Windows, MacOS, Java-enabled web browsers, and even
for PDA's like the Palm Pilot and Cell Phones! You can use any of them
to connect to x11vnc (see the above VNC links under "Background:" on
how to obtain a viewer for your platform or see this FAQ. For Solaris,
vncviewer is available in the Companion CD package SFWvnc.)
In this example we'll use the Unix vncviewer program on sitting-here
by typing the following command in a second terminal window:
sitting-here> vncviewer far-away.east:0
That should pop up a viewer window on sitting-here.west showing and
allowing interaction with the far-away.east:0 X11 desktop. Pretty
nifty! When finished, exit the viewer: the remote x11vnc process will
shutdown automatically (or you can use the -forever option to have it
wait for additional viewer connections.)
Common Gotcha: Nowadays there will likely be a host-level firewall on
the x11vnc side that is blocking remote access to the VNC port (e.g.
5900.) You will either have to open up that port (or a range of ports)
in your firewall administration tool, or try the SSH tunnelling method
below (even still the firewall must allow in the SSH port, 22.)
Shortcut: Of course if you left x11vnc running on far-away.east:0 in a
terminal window with the -forever option or as a service, you'd only
have to do Step 3 as you moved around. Be sure to use a VNC Password
or other measures if you do that.
Super Shortcut: Here is a potentially very easy way to get all of it
working.
* Have x11vnc (0.9.3 or later) available to run on the remote host
(i.e. in $PATH.)
* Download and unpack a SSVNC bundle (1.0.19 or later, e.g.
ssvnc_no_windows-1.0.28.tar.gz) on the Viewer-side machine.
* Start the SSVNC Terminal Services mode GUI: ./ssvnc/bin/tsvnc
* Enter your remote username@hostname (e.g. [email protected]) in
the "VNC Terminal Server" entry.
* Click "Connect".
That will do an SSH to username@hostname and start up x11vnc and then
connect a VNC Viewer through the SSH encrypted tunnel.
There are a number of things assumed here, first that you are able to
SSH into the remote host; i.e. that you have a Unix account there and
the SSH server is running. On Unix and MacOS X it is assumed that the
ssh client command is available on the local machine (on Windows a
plink binary is included in the SSVNC bundle.) Finally, it is assumed
that you are already logged into an X session on the remote machine,
e.g. your workstation (otherwise, a virtual X server, e.g. Xvfb, will
be started for you.)
In some cases the remote SSH server will not run commands with the
same $PATH that you normally have in your shell there. In this case
click on Options -> Advanced -> X11VNC Options, and type in the
location of the x11vnc binary under "Full Path". (End of Super
Shortcut)
Desktop Sharing: The above more or less assumed nobody was sitting at
the workstation display "far-away.east:0". This is often the case: a
user wants to access her workstation remotely. Another usage pattern
has the user sitting at "far-away.east:0" and invites one or more
other people to view and interact with his desktop. Perhaps the user
gives a demo or presentation this way (using the telephone for vocal
communication.) A "Remote Help Desk" mode would be similar: a
technician connects remotely to the user's desktop to interactively
solve a problem the user is having.
For these cases it should be obvious how it is done. The above steps
will work, but more easily the user sitting at far-away.east:0 simply
starts up x11vnc from a terminal window, after which the guests would
start their VNC viewers. For this usage mode the "-connect
host1,host2" option may be of use to automatically connect to the
vncviewers in "-listen" mode on the list of hosts.
_________________________________________________________________
Tunnelling x11vnc via SSH:
The above example had no security or privacy at all. When logging into
remote machines (certainly when going over the internet) it is best to
use ssh, or use a VPN (for a VPN, Virtual Private Network, the above
example should be pretty safe.)
For x11vnc one can tunnel the VNC protocol through an encrypted ssh
channel. It would look something like running the following commands:
sitting-here> ssh -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 far-away.east 'x11vnc -localhost
-display :0'
(you will likely have to provide passwords/passphrases to login from
sitting-here into your far-away.east Unix account; we assume you have
a login account on far-away.east and it is running the SSH server)
And then in another terminal window on sitting-here run the command:
sitting-here> vncviewer -encodings "copyrect tight zrle hextile" localhost:0
Note: The -encodings option is very important: vncviewer will often
default to "raw" encoding if it thinks the connection is to the local
machine, and so vncviewer gets tricked this way by the ssh
redirection. "raw" encoding will be extremely slow over a networked
link, so you need to force the issue with -encodings "copyrect tight
...". Nowadays, not all viewers use the -encodings option, try
"-PreferredEncoding=ZRLE" (although the newer viewers seem to
autodetect well when to use raw or not.)
Note that "x11vnc -localhost ..." limits incoming vncviewer
connections to only those from the same machine. This is very natural
for ssh tunnelling (the redirection appears to come from the same
machine.) Use of a VNC password is also strongly recommended.
Note also the -t we used above (force allocate pseudoterminal), it
actually seems to improve interactive typing response via VNC!
You may want to add the -C option to ssh to enable compression. The
VNC compression is not perfect, and so this may help a bit. However,
over a fast LAN you probably don't want to enable SSH compression
because it can slow things down. Try both and see which is faster.
If your username is different on the remote machine use something
like: "[email protected]" in the above ssh command line.
Some VNC viewers will do the ssh tunnelling for you automatically, the
TightVNC Unix vncviewer does this when the "-via far-away.east" option
is supplied to it (this requires x11vnc to be already running on
far-away.east or having it started by inetd(8).) See the 3rd script
example below for more info.
SSVNC: You may also want to look at the Enhanced TightVNC Viewer
(ssvnc) bundles because they contain scripts and GUIs to automatically
set up SSH tunnels (e.g. the GUI, "ssvnc", does it automatically and
so does this command: "ssvnc_cmd -ssh [email protected]:0") and can
even start up x11vnc as well.
The Terminal Services mode of SSVNC is perhaps the easiest way to use
x11vnc. You just need to have x11vnc available in $PATH on the remote
side (and can SSH to the host), and then on the viewer-side you type
something like:
tsvnc [email protected]
everything else is done automatically for you. Normally this will
start a virtual Terminal Services X session (RAM-only), but if you
already have a real X session up on the physical hardware it will find
that one for you.
Gateways: If the machine you SSH into is not the same machine with
the X display you wish to view (e.g. your company provides incoming
SSH access to a gateway machine), then you need to change the above
to, e.g.: "-L 5900:OtherHost:5900":
sitting-here> ssh -t -L 5900:OtherHost:5900 gateway.east
Where gateway.east is the internet hostname (or IP) of the gateway
machine (SSH server.) 'OtherHost' might be, e.g., freds-pc or
192.168.2.33 (it is OK for these to be private hostnames or private IP
addresses, the host in -L is relative to the remote server side.)
Once logged in, you'll need to do a second login (ssh, rsh, etc.) to
the workstation machine 'OtherHost' and then start up x11vnc on it (if
it isn't already running.) (The "-connect gateway:59xx" option may be
another alternative here with the viewer already in -listen mode.) For
an automatic way to use a gateway and have all the network traffic
encrypted (including inside the firewall) see Chaining SSH's.
These gateway access modes also can be done automatically for you via
the "Proxy/Gateway" setting in SSVNC (including the Chaining SSH's
case, "Double Proxy".)
Firewalls/Routers:
A lot of people have inexpensive devices for home or office that act
as a Firewall and Router to the machines inside on a private LAN. One
can usually configure the Firewall/Router from inside the LAN via a
web browser.
Often having a Firewall/Router sitting between the vncviewer and
x11vnc will make it impossible for the viewer to connect to x11vnc.
One thing that can be done is to redirect a port on the
Firewall/Router to, say, the SSH port (22) on an inside machine (how
to do this depends on your particular Firewall/Router, often the
router config URL is http://192.168.100.1 See www.portforward.com for
more info.) This way you reach these computers from anywhere on the
Internet and use x11vnc to view X sessions running on them.
Suppose you configured the Firewall/Router to redirect these ports to
two internal machines:
Port 12300 -> 192.168.1.3, Port 22 (SSH)
Port 12301 -> 192.168.1.4, Port 22 (SSH)
(where 192.168.1.3 is "jills-pc" and 192.168.1.4 is "freds-pc".) Then
the ssh's would look something like:
sitting-here> ssh -t -p 12300 -L 5900:localhost:5900 [email protected] 'x11v
nc -localhost -display :0'
sitting-here> ssh -t -p 12301 -L 5900:localhost:5900 [email protected] 'x11v
nc -localhost -display :0'
Where far-away.east means the hostname (or IP) that the
Router/Firewall is using (for home setups this is usually the IP
gotten from your ISP via DHCP, the site http://www.whatismyip.com/ is
a convenient way to determine what it is.)
It is a good idea to add some obscurity to accessing your system via
SSH by using some high random port (e.g. 12300 in the above example.)
If you can't remember it, or are otherwise not worried about port
scanners detecting the presence of your SSH server and there is just
one internal PC involved you could map 22:
Port 22 -> 192.168.1.3, Port 22 (SSH)
Again, this SSH gateway access can be done automatically for you via
the "Proxy/Gateway" setting in SSVNC. And under the "Remote SSH
Command" setting you can enter the x11vnc -localhost -display :0.
Host-Level-Firewalls: even with the hardware Firewall/Router problem
solved via a port redirection, most PC systems have their own Host
level "firewalls" enabled to protect users from themselves. I.e. the
system itself blocks all incoming connections. So you will need to see
what is needed to configure it to allow in the port (e.g. 22) that you
desire. E.g. Yast, Firestarter, iptables(1), etc..
VNC Ports and Firewalls: The above discussion was for configuring the
Firewall/Router to let in port 22 (SSH), but the same thing can be
done for the default VNC port 5900:
Port 5900 -> 192.168.1.3, Port 5900 (VNC)
Port 5901 -> 192.168.1.4, Port 5900 (VNC)
(where 192.168.1.3 is "jills-pc" and 192.168.1.4 is "freds-pc".) This
could be used for normal, unencrypted connections and also for SSL
encrypted ones.
The VNC displays to enter in the VNC viewer would be, say,
"far-away.east:0" to reach jills-pc and "far-away.east:1" to reach
freds-pc. We assume above that x11vnc is using port 5900 (and any
Host-Level-firewalls on jills-pc has been configured to let that port
in.) Use the "-rfbport" option to tell which port x11vnc should listen
on.
For a home system one likely does not have a hostname and would have
to use the IP address, say, "24.56.78.93:0". E.g.:
vncviewer 24.56.78.93:0
You may want to choose a more obscure port on the router side, e.g.
5944, to avoid a lot of port scans finding your VNC server. For 5944
you would tell the viewer to use:
vncviewer 24.56.78.93:44
The IP address would need to be communicated to the person running the
VNC Viewer. The site http://www.whatismyip.com/ can help here.
_________________________________________________________________
Scripts to automate ssh tunneling: As discussed below, there may be
some problems with port 5900 being available. If that happens, the
above port and display numbers may change a bit (e.g. -> 5901 and :1).
However, if you "know" port 5900 will be free on the local and remote
machines, you can easily automate the above two steps by using the
x11vnc option -bg (forks into background after connection to the
display is set up) or using the -f option of ssh. Some example scripts
are shown below. Feel free to try the ssh -C to enable its compression
and see if that speeds things up noticeably.
_________________________________________________________________
#1. A simple example script, assuming no problems with port 5900 being
taken on the local or remote sides, looks like:
#!/bin/sh
# usage: x11vnc_ssh <host>:<xdisplay>
# e.g.: x11vnc_ssh snoopy.peanuts.com:0
# (user@host:N also works)
host=`echo $1 | awk -F: '{print $1}'`
disp=`echo $1 | awk -F: '{print $2}'`
if [ "x$disp" = "x" ]; then disp=0; fi
cmd="x11vnc -display :$disp -localhost -rfbauth .vnc/passwd"
enc="copyrect tight zrle hextile zlib corre rre raw"
ssh -f -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 $host "$cmd"
for i in 1 2 3
do
sleep 2
if vncviewer -encodings "$enc" :0; then break; fi
done
See also rx11vnc.pl below.
_________________________________________________________________
#2. Another method is to start the VNC viewer in listen mode
"vncviewer -listen" and have x11vnc initiate a reverse connection
using the -connect option:
#!/bin/sh
# usage: x11vnc_ssh <host>:<xdisplay>
# e.g.: x11vnc_ssh snoopy.peanuts.com:0
# (user@host:N also works)
host=`echo $1 | awk -F: '{print $1}'`
disp=`echo $1 | awk -F: '{print $2}'`
if [ "x$disp" = "x" ]; then disp=0; fi
cmd="x11vnc -display :$disp -localhost -connect localhost" # <== note new opt
ion
enc="copyrect tight zrle hextile zlib corre rre raw"
vncviewer -encodings "$enc" -listen &
pid=$!
ssh -t -R 5500:localhost:5500 $host "$cmd"
kill $pid
Note the use of the ssh option "-R" instead of "-L" to set up a remote
port redirection.
_________________________________________________________________
#3. A third way is specific to the TightVNC vncviewer special option
-via for gateways. The only tricky part is we need to start up x11vnc
and give it some time (5 seconds in this example) to start listening
for connections (so we cannot use the TightVNC default setting for
VNC_VIA_CMD):
#!/bin/sh
# usage: x11vnc_ssh <host>:<xdisplay>
# e.g.: x11vnc_ssh snoopy.peanuts.com:0
host=`echo $1 | awk -F: '{print $1}'`
disp=`echo $1 | awk -F: '{print $2}'`
if [ "x$disp" = "x" ]; then disp=0; fi
VNC_VIA_CMD="ssh -f -t -L %L:%H:%R %G x11vnc -localhost -rfbport 5900 -display
:$disp; sleep 5"
export VNC_VIA_CMD
vncviewer -via $host localhost:0 # must be TightVNC vncviewer.
Of course if you already have the x11vnc running waiting for
connections (or have it started out of inetd(8)), you can simply use
the TightVNC "vncviewer -via gateway host:port" in its default mode to
provide secure ssh tunnelling.
_________________________________________________________________
VNC password file: Also note in the #1. example script that the option
"-rfbauth .vnc/passwd" provides additional protection by requiring a
VNC password for every VNC viewer that connects. The vncpasswd or
storepasswd programs, or the x11vnc -storepasswd option can be used to
create the password file. x11vnc also has the slightly less secure
-passwdfile and "-passwd XXXXX" options to specify passwords.
Very Important: It is up to YOU to tell x11vnc to use password
protection (-rfbauth or -passwdfile), it will NOT do it for you
automatically or force you to (use -usepw if you want to be forced
to.) The same goes for encrypting the channel between the viewer and
x11vnc: it is up to you to use ssh, stunnel, -ssl mode, a VPN, etc.
(use the Enhanced TightVNC Viewer (SSVNC) GUI if you want to be forced
to use SSL or SSH.) For additional safety, also look into the -allow
and -localhost options and building x11vnc with tcp_wrappers support
to limit host access.
_________________________________________________________________
Tunnelling x11vnc via SSL/TLS:
One can also encrypt the VNC traffic using an SSL/TLS tunnel such as
stunnel.mirt.net (also stunnel.org) or using the built-in (Mar/2006)
-ssl openssl mode. A SSL-enabled Java applet VNC Viewer is also
provided in the x11vnc package (and https can be used to download it.)
Although not as ubiquitous as ssh, SSL tunnelling still provides a
useful alternative. See this FAQ on -ssl and -stunnel modes for
details and examples.
The Enhanced TightVNC Viewer (SSVNC) bundles contain some convenient
utilities to automatically set up an SSL tunnel from the viewer-side
(i.e. to connect to "x11vnc -ssl ...".) And many other enhancements
too.
_________________________________________________________________
Downloading x11vnc:
x11vnc is a contributed program to the LibVNCServer project at
SourceForge.net. I use libvncserver for all of the VNC aspects; I
couldn't have done without it. The full source code may be found and
downloaded (either file-release tarball or GIT tree) from the above
link. As of Sep 2010, the x11vnc-0.9.12.tar.gz source package is
released (recommended download). The x11vnc 0.9.12 release notes.
The x11vnc package is the subset of the libvncserver package needed to
build the x11vnc program. Also, you can get a copy of my latest,
bleeding edge x11vnc-0.9.13-dev.tar.gz tarball to build the most up to
date one.
Precompiled Binaries/Packages: See the FAQ below for information
about where you might obtain a precompiled x11vnc binary from 3rd
parties and some ones I create.
VNC Viewers: To obtain VNC viewers for the viewing side (Windows, Mac
OS, or Unix) try these links:
* http://www.tightvnc.com/download.html
* http://www.realvnc.com/download-free.html
* http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/
* http://www.ultravnc.com/
* Our Enhanced TightVNC Viewer (SSVNC)
[ssvnc.gif]
More tools: Here is a ssh/rsh wrapper script rx11vnc that attempts to
automatically do the above Steps 1-3 for you (provided you have
ssh/rsh login permission on the machine x11vnc is to be run on.) The
above example would be: "rx11vnc far-away.east:0" typed into a shell
on sitting-here.west. Also included is an experimental script
rx11vnc.pl that attempts to tunnel the vnc traffic through an ssh port
redirection (and does not assume port 5900 is free.) Have a look at
them to see what they do and customize as needed:
* rx11vnc wrapper script
* rx11vnc.pl wrapper script to tunnel traffic thru ssh
_________________________________________________________________
Building x11vnc:
Make sure you have all the needed build/compile/development packages
installed (e.g. Linux distributions foolishly don't install them by
default.) See this build FAQ for more details.
If your OS has libjpeg.so and libz.so in standard locations you can
build as follows (example given for the 0.9.12 release of x11vnc:
replace with the version you downloaded):
(un-tar the x11vnc+libvncserver tarball)
# gzip -dc x11vnc-0.9.12.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
(cd to the source directory)
# cd x11vnc-0.9.12
(run configure and then run make)
# ./configure
# make
(if all went OK, copy x11vnc to the desired destination, e.g. $HOME/bin)
# cp ./x11vnc/x11vnc $HOME/bin
Or do make install, it will probably install to /usr/local/bin (run
./configure --help for information on customizing your configuration,
e.g. --prefix=/my/place.) You can now run it via typing "x11vnc",
"x11vnc -help | more", "x11vnc -forever -shared -display :0", etc.
Note: Currently gcc is recommended to build libvncserver. In some
cases it will build with non-gcc compilers, but the resulting binary
sometimes fails to run properly. For Solaris pre-built gcc binaries
are at http://www.sunfreeware.com/. Some Solaris pre-built x11vnc
binaries are here.
However, one user reports it does work fine when built with Sun Studio
10, so YMMV. In fact, here is a little build script to do this on
Solaris 10:
#!/bin/sh
PATH=/usr/ccs/bin:/opt/SUNWspro/bin:$PATH; export PATH
CC='cc' \
CFLAGS='-xO4' \
LDFLAGS='-L/usr/sfw/lib -L/usr/X11/lib -R/usr/sfw/lib -R/usr/X11/lib' \
CPPFLAGS='-I /usr/sfw/include -I/usr/X11/include' \
./configure
MAKE="make -e"
AM_CFLAGS=""
export MAKE AM_CFLAGS
$MAKE
In general you can use the "make -e" trick if you don't like
libvncserver's choice of AM_CFLAGS. See the build scripts below for
more ideas. Scripts similar to the above have been shown to work with
vendor C compilers on HP-UX (ccom: HP92453-01) and Tru64 (Compaq C
V6.5-011.)
You can find information on Misc. Build problems here.
_________________________________________________________________
Building on Solaris, FreeBSD, etc: Depending on your version of
Solaris or other Unix OS the jpeg and/or zlib libraries may be in
non-standard places (e.g. /usr/local, /usr/sfw, /opt/sfw, etc.)
Note: If configure cannot find these two libraries then TightVNC and
ZRLE encoding support will be disabled, and you don't want that!!! The
TightVNC encoding gives very good compression and performance, it even
makes a noticeable difference over a fast LAN.
Shortcuts: On Solaris 10 you can pick up almost everything just by
insuring that your PATH has /usr/sfw/bin (for gcc) and /usr/ccs/bin
(for other build tools), e.g.:
env PATH=/usr/sfw/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:$PATH sh -c './configure; make'
(The only thing this misses is /usr/X11/lib/libXrandr.so.2, which is
for the little used -xrandr option, see the script below to pick it up
as well.)
libjpeg is included in Solaris 9 and later (/usr/sfw/include and
/usr/sfw/lib), and zlib in Solaris 8 and later (/usr/include and
/usr/lib.) So on Solaris 9 you can pick up everything with something
like this:
env PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:$PATH sh -c './configure --with-jpeg=/us
r/sfw; make'
assuming your gcc is in /usr/local/bin and x11vnc 0.7.1 or later.
These are getting pretty long, see those assignments split up in the
build script below.
If your system does not have these libraries at all you can get the
source for the libraries to build them: libjpeg is available at
ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/ and zlib at http://www.gzip.org/zlib/.
See also http://www.sunfreeware.com/ for Solaris binary packages of
these libraries as well as for gcc. Normally they will install into
/usr/local but you can install them anywhere with the
--prefix=/path/to/anywhere, etc.
Here is a build script that indicates one way to pass the library
locations information to the libvncserver configuration via the
CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS environment variables.
---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8
<---
#!/bin/sh
# Build script for Solaris, etc, with gcc, libjpeg and libz in
# non-standard locations.
# set to get your gcc, etc:
#
PATH=/path/to/gcc/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/sfw/bin:$PATH
JPEG=/path/to/jpeg # set to maybe "/usr/local", "/usr/sfw", or "/opt/sfw"
ZLIB=/path/to/zlib # set to maybe "/usr/local", "/usr/sfw", or "/opt/sfw"
# Below we assume headers in $JPEG/include and $ZLIB/include and the
# shared libraries are in $JPEG/lib and $ZLIB/lib. If your situation
# is different change the locations in the two lines below.
#
CPPFLAGS="-I $JPEG/include -I $ZLIB/include"
LDFLAGS="-L$JPEG/lib -R $JPEG/lib -L$ZLIB/lib -R $ZLIB/lib"
# These two lines may not be needed on more recent Solaris releases:
#
CPPFLAGS="$CPPFLAGS -I /usr/openwin/include"
LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -L/usr/openwin/lib -R /usr/openwin/lib"
# These are for libXrandr.so on Solaris 10:
#
CPPFLAGS="$CPPFLAGS -I /usr/X11/include"
LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -L/usr/X11/lib -R /usr/X11/lib"
# Everything needs to built with _REENTRANT for thread safe errno:
#
CPPFLAGS="$CPPFLAGS -D_REENTRANT"
export PATH CPPFLAGS LDFLAGS
./configure
make
ls -l ./x11vnc/x11vnc
---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8<---8
<---
Then do make install or copy the x11vnc binary to your desired
destination.
BTW, To run a shell script, just cut-and-paste the above into a file,
say "myscript", then modify the "/path/to/..." items to correspond to
your system/environment, and then type: "sh myscript" to run it.
Note that on Solaris make is /usr/ccs/bin/make, so that is why the
above puts /usr/ccs/bin in PATH. Other important build utilities are
there too: ld, ar, etc. Also, it is probably a bad idea to have
/usr/ucb in your PATH while building.
Starting with the 0.7.1 x11vnc release the "configure --with-jpeg=DIR
--with-zlib=DIR" options are handy if you want to avoid making a
script.
If you need to link OpenSSL libssl.a on Solaris see this method.
If you need to build on Solaris 2.5.1 or earlier or other older Unix
OS's, see this workaround FAQ.
Building on FreeBSD, OpenBSD, ...: The jpeg libraries seem to be in
/usr/local or /usr/pkg on these OS's. You won't need the openwin stuff
in the above script (but you may need /usr/X11R6/....) Also starting
with the 0.7.1 x11vnc release, this usually works:
./configure --with-jpeg=/usr/local
make
Building on HP-UX: For jpeg and zlib you will need to do the same
sort of thing as described above for Solaris. You set CPPFLAGS and
LDFLAGS to find them (see below for an example.) You do not need to do
any of the above /usr/openwin stuff. Also, HP-UX does not seem to
support -R, so get rid of the -R items in LDFLAGS. Because of this, at
runtime you may need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH or SHLIB_PATH to indicate
the directory paths so the libraries can be found. It is a good idea
to have static archives, e.g. libz.a and libjpeg.a for the nonstandard
libraries so that they get bolted into the x11vnc binary (and so won't
get "lost".)
Here is what we recently did to build x11vnc 0.7.2 on HP-UX 11.11
./configure --with-jpeg=$HOME/hpux/jpeg --with-zlib=$HOME/hpux/zlib
make
Where we had static archives (libjpeg.a, libz.a) only and header files
in the $HOME/hpux/... directories as discussed for the build script.
On HP-UX 11.23 and 11.31 we have had problems compiling with gcc.
"/usr/include/rpc/auth.h:87: error: field 'syncaddr' has incomplete
type". As a workaround for x11vnc 0.9.4 and later set your CPPFLAGS to
include:
CPPFLAGS="-DIGNORE_GETSPNAM"
export CPPFLAGS
This disables a very rare usage mode for -unixpw_nis by not trying
getspnam(3).
Using HP-UX's C compiler on 11.23 and 11.31 we have some severe
compiler errors that have not been worked around yet. If you need to
do this, contact me and I will give you a drastic recipe that will
produce a working binary.
Building on AIX: AIX: one user had to add the "X11.adt" package to
AIX 4.3.3 and 5.2 to get build header files like XShm.h, etc. You may
also want to make sure that /usr/lpp/X11/include, etc is being picked
up by the configure and make.
For a recent build on AIX 5.3 we needed to add these CFLAGS to be able
to build with gcc:
env CFLAGS='-maix64 -Xlinker -bbigtoc' ./configure ...
we also built our own libjpeg and libz using -maix64.
BTW, one way to run an Xvfb-like virtual X server for testing on AIX
is something like "/usr/bin/X11/X -force -vfb -ac :1".
Building on Mac OS X: There is now native Mac OS X support for
x11vnc by using the raw framebuffer feature. This mode does not use or
need X11 at all. To build you may need to disable X11:
./configure --without-x ...
make
However, if your system has the Mac OS X build package for X11 apps
you will not need to supply the "--without-x" option (in this case the
resulting x11vnc would be able to export both the native Mac OS X
display and windows displayed in the XDarwin X server.) Be sure to
include the ./configure option to find libjpeg on your system.
OpenSSL: Starting with version 0.8.3 x11vnc can now be built with
SSL/TLS support. For this to be enabled the libssl.so library needs to
be available at build time. So you may need to have additional
CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS items if your libssl.so is in a non-standard
place. As of x11vnc 0.9.4 there is also the --with-ssl=DIR configure
option.
Note that from OpenSSL 1.1.0 on SSLv2 support has been dropped and
SSLv3 deactivated at build time per default. This means that unless
explicitly enabled, OpenSSL builds only support TLS (any version).
Since there is a reason for dropping SSLv3 (heard of POODLE?), most
distributions do not enable it for their OpenSSL binary. In summary
this means compiling x11vnc against OpenSSL 1.1.0 or newer is no
problem, but using encryption will require a viewer with TLS support.
On Solaris using static archives libssl.a and libcrypto.a instead of
.so shared libraries (e.g. from www.sunfreeware.com), we found we
needed to also set LDFLAGS as follows to get the configure to work:
env LDFLAGS='-lsocket -ldl' ./configure --with-ssl=/path/to/openssl ...
make
_________________________________________________________________
Beta Testing:
I don't have any formal beta-testers for the releases of x11vnc, so
I'd appreciate any additional testing very much.
Thanks to those who suggested features and helped beta test x11vnc
0.9.12 released in Sep 2010!
Please help test and debug the 0.9.13 version for release sometime in
Winter 2010.
The version 0.9.13 beta tarball is kept here:
x11vnc-0.9.13-dev.tar.gz
There are also some Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, and other OS test
binaries here. Please kick the tires and report bugs, performance
regressions, undesired behavior, etc. to me.
To aid testing of the built-in SSL/TLS support for x11vnc, a number of
VNC Viewer packages for Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows have been created
that provide SSL Support for the TightVNC Viewer (this is done by
wrapper scripts and a GUI that starts STUNNEL.) It should be pretty
convenient for automatic SSL and SSH connections. It is described in
detail at and can be downloaded from the Enhanced TightVNC Viewer
(SSVNC) page. The SSVNC Unix viewer also supports x11vnc's symmetric
key encryption ciphers (see the 'UltraVNC DSM Encryption Plugin'
settings panel.)
Here are some features that will appear in the 0.9.13 release:
* Improved support for non-X11 touchscreen devices (e.g. handheld or
cell phone) via Linux uinput input injection. Additional tuning
parameters are added. TSLIB touchscreen calibration is supported.
Tested on Qtmoko Neo Freerunner. A tool, misc/uinput.pl, is
provided to diagnose uinput behavior on new devices. The env.
vars. X11VNC_UINPUT_BUS and X11VNC_UINPUT_VERSION are available if
leaving them unset does not work.
* The Linux uinput non-X11 input injection can now be bypassed:
events can be directly written to the /dev/input/event devices
specified by the user (direct_abs=..., etc.) A -pipeinput input
injection helper script, misc/qt_tslib_inject.pl is provided as a
tweakable non-builtin direct input injection method.
* The list of new uinput parameters for the above two features is:
pressure, tslib_cal, touch_always, dragskip, btn_touch;
direct_rel, direct_abs, direct_btn, direct_key.
* The MacOSX native server can now use OpenGL for the screen
capture. In nearly all cases this is faster than the raw
framebuffer capture method. There are build and run time flags,
X11VNC_MACOSX_NO_DEPRECATED, etc. to disable use of deprecated
input injection and screen access interfaces. Cursor shape now
works for 64bit binaries.
* The included SSL enabled Java VNC Viewers now handle Mouse Wheel
events.
* miscellaneous new features and changes:
* In -reflect mode, the libvncclient connection can now have the
pixel format modified via the environment variables
X11VNC_REFLECT_bitsPerSample, X11VNC_REFLECT_samplesPerPixel, and
X11VNC_REFLECT_bytesPerPixel
* In -create mode the following environment variables are added to
fine tune the behavior: FIND_DISPLAY_NO_LSOF: do not use lsof(1)
to try to determine the Linux VT, FIND_DISPLAY_NO_VT_FIND: do not
try to determine the Linux VT at all, X11VNC_CREATE_LC_ALL_C_OK:
do not bother undoing the setting LC_ALL=C that the create_display
script sets. The performance of the -create script has been
improved for large installations (100's of user sessions on one
machine.)
* In -unixpw mode, one can now Tab from login: to Password.
* An environment variable, X11VNC_SB_FACTOR, allows one to scale the
-sb screenblank sleep time from the default 2 secs.
* An experimental option -unixsock is available for testing. Note,
however, that it requires a manual change to
libvncserver/rfbserver.c for it to work.
* Documented that -grabkbd is no longer working with some/most
window managers (it can prevent resizing and menu posting.)
Here are some features that appeared in the 0.9.12 release (Sep/2010):
* One can now specify the maximum number of displays that can be
created in -create mode via the env. var.
X11VNC_CREATE_MAX_DISPLAYS
* The X11VNC_NO_LIMIT_SHM env. var. is added to skip any automatic
shared memory reduction.
* The kdm display manager is now detected when trying not to get
killed by the display manager.
* A compile time bug is fixed so that configuring using
--with-system-libvncserver pointing to LibVNCServer 0.9.7 works
again. A bug from forced use of Xdefs.h is worked around.
Here are some features that appeared in the 0.9.11 release (Aug/2010):
* The source tree is synchronized with the most recent libvncclient
(this only affects -reflect mode.) Build is fixed for
incompatibilities when using an external LibVNCServer (e.g.
./configure --with-system-libvncserver...) Please help test these
build and runtime aspects and report back what you find, thanks.
* The SSL enabled Java VNC Viewer Makefile has been modified so that
the jar files that are built are compatible back to Java 1.4.
* In -create/-unixpw mode, the env. var. FD_USERPREFS may be set to
a filename in the user's home directory that includes default
username:options values (so the options do not need to be typed
every time at the login prompt.)
* In -reflect mode cursor position updates are now handled
correctly.
Here are some features that appeared in the 0.9.10 release (May/2010):
* The included SSL enabled Java applet viewer now supports Chained
SSL Certificates. The debugCerts=yes applet parameter aids
troubleshooting certificate validation. The x11vnc -ssl mode has
always supported chained SSL certificates (simply put the