Tunnelling VNC Through SSH

In some lab environments it’s impossible to use VNC to access remote machines due to security practices(ports being blocked, BSOs, etc). If your job requires you to access those machines pretty frequently this can be a huge headache. Thankfully, we can work around this and tunnel VNC using SSH. In my experiences SSH is almost always available.

This process basically relies on port forwarding, so use good judgement and be careful of firewalls – they may impact your ability to do this successfully (although for me, Zonelabs Integrity Client did not have problems).

SSH can allow you to forward a local port to a destination port and vice versa. Since VNC generally uses the 5900 range (by default on Windows, and usually 5901, 5902, etc on *NIX), you can forward those ports to other ports locally. In my environment I have to go to a jump point server, and then from the jump point to my target server. For you in may not be this difficult.

I’m using a Windows XP machine with cygwin installed. I haven’t tried using putty, so I can vouch for it.

Open a command line terminal:

ssh -g -L 5902:donner:5900 -C administrator@robstestserver.com

Again, the trick in my environment is I have to jump from the target host to the jump point, and from the jump point to my local machine. The -g and the -L allow me to do this. The -C is for compression.

Now open up a VNC Viewer and enter the following and you should see the contents of your target system in the VNC window.:
localhost:5902

In the example I gave above, it tells SSH to connect with Compression to robstestserver.com (the jump point server) as administrator, and then once there forward port 5900 on machine donner (which is defined in robstestserver’s hosts file) to port 5902. Then the VNC viewer on your machine is opened to port 5902 and uses that for I/O to port 5900 on donner.

This is a pretty nifty little trick to getting around the sometimes painful lab security.

If you have any questions or problems post them in the comments.

Example ITPM 3.1 Workflow with Supported Array Usage

workflow AAAarrayExample LocaleInsensitive

array var2 = { "1", "2", "3" }
log info var2
var var3 ="1"

foreach abc in var2 do
if Jython( var3 == abc ) then
log info Jython("var 1 is contained in array var2")
endif
done

var var5 ="1"
if Jython[ var5 in ("1", "2", "3") ] then
log info Jython("var5: is part of sequence")
else
log info Jython("var5: is not part of sequence")
endif

var x = var2[0]
log info Jython("x is: " + x)

array arr3
arr3[0] = "1"
log info Jython("0th element of arr3 is:" + arr3[0])

var z = arraysize(arr3)
log info Jython("size of array arr3 is: " + z)

array arr4
var xy = arraysize(arr4)
log info Jython("size of array arr4 is: " + xy)

Compiling Apache2 and PHP5 on AIX 5.3 TL5

I’ve been working on my test AIX 5.3 system trying to get Apache2 and PHP installed. My ultimate goal is too get Apache2 and PHP setup
so I can install Drupal and start testing it with a DB2 back end. If I can get it working and running stable, I will move all of my test web sites over to this machine.

After some trial and error, here is how I got Apache2 and PHP5 compiled on my AIX 5.3 TL5 machine.

Read more

Reader Appreciation

I wanted to take a minute and thank all of the readers that come by my site. I get so caught up with things that I haven’t been showing any love to you guys and gals. A BIG thank you to all of you.

I also want to send a HUGE thank you out to the entrecarders that have written recommendations for the site. Every time I get a recommendation I get giddy like a little kid. If my mom lived closer I would probably show them to her like I would when I got an A on a report card…Yeah I’m guessing on that one. I don’t remembering getting any A’s. te he.

I know it’s not a lot but I want to share the recommendations for everyone else and give these guys and gals some link love.

100% Canucklehead approved! Not something to be taken lightly. To say this gent is kinda blogosphere royalty is akin to saying Amy Winehouse kinda like the taste of crack … – Life with Canucklehead

An interesting site .I enjoyed reading the posts and the images are great too.So I highly recommend this one…10 out of 10,for sure.Keep up the awesome stuff – Jesse Blogs It All (Blog no longer exists )

I don’t want to show any favoritism but I will. This one’s my favorite.

You’ve got to see why SIR ROBBIE ROB got an extremely horrible eyesight! I had quite a good laugh reading some of his posts. I admit I am a lurker most of the time and this blog is certainly one of my hangouts. It’s definitely worth every minute being here. You’ve got to see it for yourself! Adding to this blog’s appeal is the zero percentage of declining advert requests. Quick approval on requests and I just love to advertise again and again in this blog! – Lainy’s Musing

I can’t thank all of you enough. Mucho gracias.

Thought of the Day

A random thought popped into my head that I want to share with you. I’ve been using the men’s restroom for quite a long time (It’s been 10 years since the gender reassignment operation) and I’m noticing some disturbing things. A large percentage of guys don’t wash their hands. They go to the urinal, unzip, and pull out their little buddy. After finishing up they quickly head for the door hoping no one notices. We do.

Big deal, everyone knows that, you might be saying to yourself. If you think about it, it’s a pretty big deal. A big disgusting deal. Let’s go through an example of why it’s a big deal.

Bob goes to the bathroom to relieve his bladder. He pulls out his little friend and does his business. Once finished he shakes his buddy…one too many times, pretty much masturbating. Then he darts out of the restroom without visiting the sink.

A few minutes later you run into Bob in the hallway. During the normal greetings with Bob, you shake hands. Maybe you even do the handshake followed by the shoulder bump and hand on the back. word. While conversing you happen to wipe your face with the hand Bob shook. Hmmm you like that? Yeah you do.

After this short conversation you go back to your desk to eat that bag of popcorn you just popped. Man…your fingers sure got greasy. Why not lick that butter off your fingers? Yeah like that. Quick question for you…How did Bob taste?

Nasty, right?

Now imagine this same encounter with Bob happening with 10 of your co-workers. You all have something in common…you’ve had Bob’s penis all over you.

Once again, imagine this same encounter with Bob, but instead of him doing a #1 he went #2. Yeah…you’ve pretty much just tossed his salad.

I want you to think about that the next time you go to shake someone’s hand. Most likely they didn’t wash their hands.

If you’re like me, you keep a mental list of the people that don’t wash their hands. Even the ones that “wash” their hands for 4 seconds. Not good enough. I keep the mental list so I make sure I don’t shake that person’s hand. I’m not about to have some guy’s junk all over me without getting dinner first. So yes, it’s a pretty big deal.