Getting started with VNC^® Enterprise Edition for Mac OS X

Contents

• Downloading
• Installing
• The Dock Icon
• Installing a License Key
• Configuring
• Connecting

Downloading

VNC Enterprise Edition for Mac OS X is available for both PPC and x86 processor architectures. If you are not sure what type of processor your computer has, then you should download the PPC version, which will run on either processor. However, for best performance, we recommend that you use the correct version for your processor.

• Download VNC Enterprise Edition for Mac OS X (PPC)
• Download VNC Enterprise Edition for Mac OS X (x86)

For either architecture, you can download an installer package (.pkg) containing both the server and viewer, or a disk image (.dmg) containing just the viewer.

Installing

To install VNC Server Enterprise Edition for Mac OS X, double-click on the downloaded installer and follow the on-screen instructions. You will need to restart your computer in order to run the VNC Server in Service-Mode, but you can start using it in User-Mode immediately.

The Dock Icon

If VNC Server is running, there will be an icon in the dock. Under normal circumstances, the dock icon has a white background; however, when someone is connected to your computer, the background color of the icon changes to black to inform you of this. It is not possible to remove the dock icon without closing VNC Server and disabling connections to your computer. Note that, in Service-Mode, VNC Server continues to run even if no-one is logged in locally. In this case, the dock icon will launch automatically when someone logs in.

As well as providing a visual indication of whether or not someone is currently connected to your computer, most administrative functions can be carried out either from the VNC Server menu or by right-clicking on the VNC Server dock icon.

Installing a License Key

When you first install the software, you will be prompted to install a license key. To install a license key at any other time, run the Install license key program from the VNC Server folder of Applications. You will be asked to enter an administrator password before a license key can be entered.

Enter the license key exactly as it appears in the email you received when you purchased the software (copy and paste is best). If you would like to try the software before buying a license, then you can get a free 30-day trial.

Configuring

VNC Server supports two modes of operation:

• Service Mode—The server runs when the computer starts up and is accessible even when no-one is logged in. Only users with administrative privileges can stop or reconfigure the service in Service Mode.
• User Mode—The server can be started and stopped "on-demand" by any user when remote access is needed. Each user has their own configuration settings and can modify these freely.

To configure the server, click on the application menu or right-click on the VNC Server dock icon and select Preferences (service mode)... or Preferences (user mode)... Note that the VNC Server must be enabled (accepting connections) before it can be configured.

It is intentionally the case that, if VNC Server is unconfigured, then no connections will be accepted. This is for security reasons.

The box at the bottom of the Security tab indicates any error conditions that may prevent you from accessing your server. When you first configure the server, you will get the message No encryption key present. Please click Generate Keys above. This message indicates that the secure key required to support encrypted sessions is not present. Click the Generate Keys button as indicated to resolve this.

You must, at a minumum, configure some settings on the Security tab. By default, VNC Server is configured to use VNC Authentication, but no password is set. You must either set a password or configure VNC Server to use a different authentication mechanism.

• No Authentication—With this option, all connections to the server will be accepted without needing a username or password. This option should be used only with extreme caution; it should not be used unless the host network is known to be completely secure.
• VNC Password Authentication—With this option, all connections must supply a valid password before being accepted. To set the password, click the Configure button.
• Mac Authentication—With this option, all connections must supply a user name and password that are valid on the computer running VNC Server. To configure which users are allowed to access the server, and the level of access they are granted, click the Configure button.

You can also configure the preferred encryption setting:

• Prefer On—Use encryption unless the VNC Viewer requests otherwise.
• Prefer Off—Don't use encryption unless the VNC Viewer requests it.
• Always On— Always use encryption. This option provides the highest security but you will not be able use legacy or third-party VNC Viewers to connect if this option is selected.

Finally, you can configure whether or not the local user will be prompted to accept each incoming connection and whether or not this applies even if no-one is logged on. Note that, when Mac Authentication is enabled, the local user will not be prompted if the connecting user has the Connect without accept/reject prompt permission flag set.

The Connections tab controls the port numbers through which the VNC Server is accessed and, optionally, the IP addresses from which connections are accepted. Note that port numbers below 1024 are reserved by the operating system for privileged processes and are not available unless you are running in Service-Mode.

• Accept connections on port—Controls the port on which connections are accepted. Uncheck this option to disable connections to the server.
• Disconnect idle clients after—Controls the length of time after which clients from which no inputs have been received will be disconnected. Set this to zero to disable idle timeouts.
• Serve Java viewer via HTTP on port—Controls the port on which the Java viewer is served to web browsers.

It is also possible to configure a list of approved and/or blacklisted IP addresses. The details of this are beyond the scope of this guide; see the section entitled Access control: Allow, deny or query addresses in the VNC Server Enterprise for Windows documentation.

The Sharing tab controls how VNC Server handles multiple simultaneous connections

• Always treat new connections as shared—New connections are treated as shared, regardless of the preference of the VNC Viewer.
• Never treat new connections as shared—New connections are treated as non-shared (private), regardless of the preference of the VNC Viewer.
• Use client's preferred setting—The preference of the VNC Viewer is used to determine whether or not a new connection should be treated as shared.

The Non-shared connections replace existing ones option controls the behaviour of non-shared sessions. If checked, then any existing connection will be closed when an incoming non-shared connection is received. If unchecked, then incoming non-shared connections will rejected if there is an existing connection.

The Misc tab contains various options that are not covered by any of the other tabs.

• Accept pointer events from clients—Uncheck this option to ignore mouse input from VNC Viewers.
• Accept keyboard events from clients—Uncheck this option to ignore keyboard input from VNC Viewers.
• Accept clipboard events from viewers—Uncheck this option to ignore clipboard changes sent by VNC Viewers.
• Send clipboard updates to clients—Uncheck this option if you don't want changes to the local clipboard to be sent to VNC Viewers.
• Only use protocol 3.3—Check this option if you are having trouble connecting with legacy or third party viewers. You will not be able to use any advanced features such as encryption or Mac Authentication; in most cases it is better to upgrade legacy or third party viewers to Enterprise Edition.
• Enable full debug logging—Check this option if you are encountering a problem. Detailed debug information will be logged to the server error log.

Connecting

In order to connect to your computer, you will need to know its IP address. To display the current IP address, click on the application menu or right-click on the VNC Server dock icon and select Connection Information... This will display the current state of both the Service-Mode and User-Mode servers and also list your computer's IP addresses (however, see our port forwarding FAQ for further information if your computer is connected to the Internet through an external firewall or NAT router).

If you have changed the Accept connections on port setting, then you will need to specify this when connecting with VNC Viewer. For example, if you have configured server snoopy to accept connections on port 80, then you would specify snoopy::80 when connecting. Note the double-colon syntax; a single colon denotes a desktop number—for example snoopy:1 refers to desktop number 1 on snoopy, which accepts connections on port 5901.