115 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
115 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
## noVNC: HTML5 VNC Client
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### Description
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noVNC is a VNC client implemented using HTML5 technologies,
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specifically Canvas and WebSockets (supports 'wss://' encryption).
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noVNC is licensed under the
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[LGPLv3](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html).
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Special thanks to [Sentry Data Systems](http://www.sentryds.com) for
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sponsoring ongoing development of this project (and for employing me).
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Notable commits, announcements and news are posted to
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@<a href="http://www.twitter.com/noVNC">noVNC</a>
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### Screenshots
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Running in Chrome before and after connecting:
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<img src="http://kanaka.github.com/noVNC/img/noVNC-1.jpg" width=400> <img src="http://kanaka.github.com/noVNC/img/noVNC-2.jpg" width=400>
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See more screenshots <a href="http://kanaka.github.com/noVNC/screenshots.html">here</a>.
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### Projects/Companies using noVNC
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* [Sentry Data Systems](http://www.sentryds.com): uses noVNC in the
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[Datanex Cloud Computing Platform](http://www.sentryds.com/products/datanex/).
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* [Ganeti Web Manager](http://code.osuosl.org/projects/ganeti-webmgr):
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Feature [#1935](http://code.osuosl.org/issues/1935).
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* [Archipel](http://archipelproject.org):
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Demo [video](http://antoinemercadal.fr/archipelblog/wp-content/themes/ArchipelWPTemplate/video_youtube.php?title=VNC%20Demonstration&id=te_bzW574Zo)
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* [openQRM](http://www.openqrm.com/): VNC plugin available
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by request. Probably included in [version
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4.8](http://www.openqrm.com/?q=node/15). Demo
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[video](http://www.openqrm-enterprise.com/news/details/article/remote-vm-console-plugin-available.html).
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* [OpenNode](http://www.opennodecloud.com/): uses noVNC in
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[OpenNode Management Console](http://opennode.activesys.org/about/software-included-in-opennode/).
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OMC [Screencast](http://opennode.activesys.org/about/opennode-management-console-screencast/).
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* [OpenStack](http://www.openstack.org): uses noVNC in Cactus release
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of [OpenStack Compute (Nova)](http://nova.openstack.org/runnova/vncconsole.html).
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OpenStack [Screencast](http://player.vimeo.com/video/20787736?autoplay=1) with noVNC shown at about 2:17.
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### Browser Requirements
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* HTML5 Canvas: Except for Internet Explorer, most
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browsers have had Canvas support for quite some time. Internet
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Explorer 9 will have Canvas support (finally).
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* HTML5 WebSockets: For browsers that do not have builtin
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WebSockets support, the project includes
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<a href="http://github.com/gimite/web-socket-js">web-socket-js</a>,
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a WebSockets emulator using Adobe Flash.
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* Fast Javascript Engine: noVNC avoids using new Javascript
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functionality so it will run on older browsers, but decode and
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rendering happen in Javascript, so a slow Javascript engine will
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mean noVNC is painfully slow.
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* I maintain a more detailed list of browser compatibility <a
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href="https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Browser-support">here</a>.
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### Server Requirements
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Unless you are using a VNC server with support for WebSockets
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connections (only my [fork of libvncserver](http://github.com/kanaka/libvncserver)
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currently), you need to use a WebSockets to TCP socket proxy. There is
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a python proxy included ('websockify'). One advantage of using the
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proxy is that it has builtin support for SSL/TLS encryption (i.e.
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"wss://").
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There a few reasons why a proxy is required:
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1. WebSockets is not a pure socket protocol. There is an initial HTTP
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like handshake to allow easy hand-off by web servers and allow
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some origin policy exchange. Also, each WebSockets frame begins
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with 0 ('\x00') and ends with 255 ('\xff').
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2. Javascript itself does not have the ability to handle pure byte
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arrays. The python proxy encodes the data as base64 so that the
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Javascript client can decode the data as an integer array.
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### Quick Start
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* Use the launch script to start a mini-webserver and the WebSockets
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proxy (websockify). The `--vnc` option is used to specify the location of
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a running VNC server:
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`./utils/launch.sh --vnc localhost:5901`
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* Point your browser to the cut-and-paste URL that is output by the
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launch script. Enter a password if the VNC server has one
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configured. Hit the Connect button and enjoy!
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### Other Pages
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* [Advanced Usage](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Advanced-usage). Generating an SSL
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certificate, starting a VNC server, advanced websockify usage, etc.
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* [Integrating noVNC](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Integration) into existing projects.
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* [Troubleshooting noVNC](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Troubleshooting) problems.
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