vnc-list-digest V1 #741

[Jonathan Morton]

>Two replies in one message to save space:
>
>> Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 18:43:34 -0600
>> From: X-Odus <x-odus "at" iname.com>
>> Subject: Re: Possible to modify VNC for screen-broadcast teaching?
>>
>> cant you just tell the server to allow connection sharing? then
>> connect all the
>> student computers to the server?
>
>Yes, I had considered that, however it would then require the students to
>initiate the connection on their side.  Ideally, I'd like to have it so that
>when the instructor sends the "connect" command, it overrides what the
>students are doing (from a service that can't be terminated for instance)
>and forces a connect.
>
>Dreadfully difficult to get their attention sometimes ;P
>
>This way there's nothing more that the instructor has to do than hit a
>"contol-alt-s" (or whatever), no messing with client configs, typing IPs,
>etc, which would slow things down a lot.  I'm not sure if establishing
>multiple simultaneous connections would bog the server down too much
>either - IP broadcasting is very efficient, more so than 25 seperate
>connections to the server.

I think a modified version of the WinVNC "add new client" would do that
job.  If you also use RFBproxy (or something) on a spare box, that could
take the load of  sharing the clients out without affecting the main
server.  Now we need someone to implement a modified version of WinVNC
viewer that runs as a service, and someone else to implement "add viewer"
with a _list_ of IP addresses in the RFBproxy or similar.

However, modifying the protocol to support UDP multicasting would be rather
more difficult.  The entire RFB protocol revolves on having a single TCP
connection to do stuff with.

--------------------------------------------------------------
from:     Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
mail:     chromi "at" cyberspace.org  (not for attachments)
uni-mail: j.d.morton "at" lancaster.ac.uk

The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Contributing to the VNC Project - http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
Macintosh VNCserver v3.3.2 beta2.3 now posted at:
	http://chromatix.autistics.org/vnc/
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