Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Remote access to windows desktops

[Mick]

On Thursday 12 July 2007 16:53, reader@×××××××.com wrote:
> I've been googling around about how to access a windows desktop (win
> xp home) from linux.
>
> There seems to be a large array of such tools but none appear to tell
> you up front if one can access the actual windows desktop and control
> it.
>
> FreeNX looks like it might but home pages are not clear to me.
>
> What are people using to access a networked windows XP home machine
> desktop and control it?

I have tried rdesktop and krdc on my Gentoo.  The WinXP box will need to run 
either remote desktop service (rdp) which is only available on WinXP Pro if I 
am not wrong, or VNC server (rfb).  I am not sure if there is a binary you 
can install on WinXP Home to run remote desktop.  The linux running rdesktop 
will use rdp to access the remote desktop port on WinXP (but you can attach 
it to a console on WinXP and run any application you like/are allowed).  krdc 
can connect to either rdp or rfb servers, so it is a more versatile 
application.  If you decide to use RealVNC server on WinXP and you are going 
to use the free version then please consider creating a ssh tunnel and run 
the application through it, only listening for connections on localhost.  
That way traffic will stay encrypted (albeit with some overhead for sure) and 
if configured with a public key authentication will remain safe from cracking 
attempts (contact me off list if you need more details to get it going).  The 
paid RealVNC versions have encrypted authentication and are more safe than 
the free version, for connections through the Internet.

The FreeNX server is a caching server which minimises transfer of data between 
the two machines.  The drawback is that it needs to run on *nix - on the 
server side of the connection.  There are FreeNX clients for both *nix and MS 
Windows machines.  You might be able to run Linux within VMWare on your 
WinXP, launch FreeNX in Linux and then connect the WinXP remote desktop 
server or the RealVNC server to it.  As I have no experience with VMWare I 
wouldn't look forward to troubleshooting a connection like this, if it is at 
all feasible in the first instance.  Anyway, that would place the WinXP box 
under some strain which may counter any gain of the FreeNX.  ISPs throttling 
of traffic on specific ports could also slow things down.

With or without a ssh tunnel make sure you get the WinXP firewall set up right 
and ideally restricted to allow access on rdp or rfb ports from specific 
client IP addresses only.

I hope this helps.
-- 
Regards,
Mick