Jonathan Morton wrote:
>
> Consider the scenario where a VNC user sets up a fiendishly complicated
> tunnel system to get his VNC client to connect to his server, but then he
> wants to do some file transfer. If the HTTP server is built into the
> server (and there is usually already one present), then the client can't
> see it without yet more tunnels being set up. If it's built into the
> client, that's one big overhead on the client. And what if the client
> itself is not visible to the Internet, eg. behind a simple NAT gateway?
>
OK, here's a truly bizarre thought. There's already an HTTP server
embedded in the VNC server. And there's already a set of patches that
allow HTTP content to be delivered via the RFB port in a limited
way. Since the very first character of a GET or POST request won't
conflict with any other message type byte once the authentication and
negotiation phase is complete, it would be fairly easy to extend
the HTTP-via-RFB patches to allow the VNC server to service HTTP
requests from the client on the RFB port *even during an active
connection*. Then maybe the client could open a local port and
listen for requests to be tunnelled through the RFB pipe to the
server, in which case HTTP-based file-xfer utils could be pointed
at the local port, and away we go. Or else the viewer could be
extended to do the file transfer itself.
I'm not saying this is a *good* idea, just that most of the
pieces are already there (on Unix and Win at least, sorry Jonathan).
Having RFB and HTTP share the same pipe is icky, but I don't
see any reason it can't be done.
-- Joe Knapka
"It was just a maddened crocodile hidden in a flower bed. It could
have happened to anyone." -- Pratchett
// Linux MM Documentation in progress:
// http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
* Evolution is an "unproven theory" in the same sense that gravity is. *
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