vnc Vs rdc

[alonebfg]

Ok i have a question and i need to find a answer. Unlike some of you i am a part time tech in a school. I have got the gateway setup for access all i need to do is dicide what to use. I have used remote desktop and it works fine with a few issues but i have been told that rdc is not as good as vnc. As i am part time i need this type of access to sort out issues when i get the phone call (help i cant log in ect.) the problem i i dont run termial services so unless i know the name of the machine i cant access it (might be better to install termal services) any idears please . also i only have a port to the sever so if i rdc to the server can i rdc to a network machine. Any idears would be helpful please. This is somthing i have not done befor as i am usually sat in front of the machine or just access one machine onsite. any one with any experice please tell me best options.

[MkII]

RDP was built by MS with help from people that knew what they were doing - Citrix ppl. So it's pretty damn good and everything [i think i'm right in saying] worth it's salt in the remote desktop arena is based on it. VNC is damn good and has it's place but doesn't really compare to the performance of rdp. You use it when rdp is impractical.

[Joedetic]

I always found VNC to be slow and a bit more of a bandwidth hog...just my own personal experience really...dont know what others have found it like in comparison

[Norphy]

They both have different uses. For remote administration, RDP is the way to go. It is a lot quicker to respond, it doesn't log the remote terminal on, you can turn off certain elements like animation, wallpaper etc, you can choose the resolution you want the display to be, you can map local drives and printers from the client to the server and it is a damn site more pleasant to use.

 

However it is useless for monitoring remote workstations. If you want to do that, VNC is the way to go.

[Geoff]

I use VNC on my servers because my home PC is Linux. The is an RDP client for Linux but the performance is pretty poor. Once I get on a server with VNC I then can RDP to individual client machines (if required).

 

I also use UltraVNC because it intergrates with Windows authentication and has file transfer. I also believe you can solve VNC's performance problems by installing the optional video driver. I haven't bothered with that though.

 

http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/

[mac_shinobi]

Not sure if this is an issue for others but what about in terms of security ie encryption or whatever. I take it you just use sftp or ssh or something of the like ?

 

Was just curious

[ITWombat]

RDP is in encrypted but is vulbnerable to a possible man in the middle attack. Best to VPN it.

 

Ii assume the recommendation is the same for VNC

[alonebfg]

how would you make rdp more secure then as it seems to be the most friendly one if i use a windows machine at home and is it possble to rdp to the server nd then rdp to the clients on the domain as the problem is i have not got terminal servs running at the moment so if i want to log onto another pc i need to know its name i cant browse to it.

[Geoff]

There are several encryption modules avalible for UltraVNC.

 

http://msrc4plugin.home.comcast.net/index.html

 

Using any of them makes UltraVNC significantly more secure than RDP.

[alonebfg]

so would you log into the server using vnc and then rdp to clients on the domain. the other thing is i have never used installed vnc where is the best place to start.

[Geoff]

Yes, I log in to the server with VNC. Then RDP from the server to a client (if required). 99% of the time I need to do things on the server though so I rarely RDP to clients. The facility is there of course, and it's dead easy to enable it using Group Policies.

 

As for installing UltraVNC, I manually do it on servers. However if you need to install remotely, I'd recommend FastPush.

 

http://www.darkage.co.uk/

[alonebfg]

somone said about putting it through a ssl is that the best way to do it and i have never used vnc so where do i get the best instructions for settig it up

[Geoff]

I don't know about SSL but perhaps they meant using a SSH tunnel?

 

http://pigtail.net/LRP/vnc/

 

The above is for VNC, but it would apply to RDP aswell. Just substitute the port numbers.

[alonebfg]

sorry lol it was a mistype what about vnc instulation is it basic enough or are there handy hints

[Geoff]

RTFM

 

http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/install/index.html

[alonebfg]

lol i know that just wondered as we had to get the port for rdp opened as we are on rm internet and dont have access to the routers they just set a web address and port for me to use

[Geoff]

RDP is TCP port 3389

VNC is TCP port 5900

SSH is TCP port 22

[ajbritton]

For what it's worth, I use RDP to connect to servers and then VNC onto workstations as required. There are a couple of VNC wrappers which make getting onto PCs easy. One is GenControl, the other is ChrisControl (a very clever compiled AutoIt script).

 

ChrisControl gives you the option of using RDP or VNC, and will connect to an existing VNC server if it's installed. If not, it will push UltraVNC onto the PC temporarily.

 

I'm connecting from within a broadband consortium grid so I'm not so worried about man-in-the-middle attacks. It works great. Now that 2003 servers are out there, it's even possible to connect to the console. I also use RoyalTS to manage my RDP connections. It's fabulous.

 

The other tool I recomend is VNC Neighbourhood as a way of finding PCs running VNC server. You can even modify it to add extra remote management tools.