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A Network Attached Windows Box?
Richard Weidmann asks: "Can a Windows box be attached to a local network as freely available resource? I use Mac OS X and Linux but sometimes it is simply convenient to have a Windows computer to do some specific task or run some specific program. I would like to run my Windows computer headless in the network in such a fashion that I can access it easily from the other computers such that: VLC is started, so I see the Windows desktop; the home directory of my current machine is mounted on the Windows box; and my local optical drive can be read from the Windows machine. Has anybody seen such a setup or project?"
VLC is a Video Lan Client
while
VNC is Virtual Network Computing
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
I believe this is what Terminal Services is designed for. If you are fortunate enough to have a terminal Serivices Server around you could also configure your home directory and things like that. For an El Cheapo version of this Find a Windows XP machine and turn desktop sharing on.
The only downside to using the XP machine instead of the TS Server is that it seems to limit you to one connection at a time.
Go Gusties
VNC and Samba should do the trick. Robin
Windows XP and higher support Remote Drive Sharing and Remote Sound over a regular Remote Desktop connection. Windows 2000 and below support Remote Desktop (well, the same protocol, but it's Terminal Services), but don't support the drive sharing or sound forwarding.
NO CARRIER
I think what you need is Citrix. It lets you access your drives as local drive, among other things.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Plenty of people do this over Local and Wide area networks. A webserver.
...Just make sure that your windows box is either disconnected from the 'net or disallowed to access the 'net, elsewise you'll have people from Khazakstan executing those apps instead of you.
Install a piece of windows compatible webserver software (IIS - Recommended, Apache, or whatever else floats your boat). Create a page or two of ASP/PHP scripts which are designed to run the applications. Whenever you need to execute the apps, point a web browser over the network to the pages.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
Summary: I have a question. I want to have a headless Windows box on a network with access to my files and want to have remote control over the box. This can be done with VNC and NFS/other network file system. Are there any projects to do this?
Not to flame, but why don't you just *do* what you just suggested?
If I want to delete a file called "foo", I don't submit a story to Slashdot saying "I want to delete a file called 'foo' on my computer. I know that I can do by by running the command rm foo. Has anyone done the same thing before?" I just run the command.
May we never see th
i wouldn't do that.
This has been done before. Try:
Wine if you just want a few Windows apps on your PC.
Win4Lin if you really want Windows on your PC.
VMWare if you want XP on your PC.
TightVNC if you want to access a Windows box from another box.
Samba if you want to share your drives back to your Windows box.
Try Tarantella, made by the folks who USED to be called SCO (the ones who sold the name to Caldera).
This product is much like Citrix, but _much_ easier to administer and requires zero software be loaded on the machines the display is coming from or the ones the display is being forwarded to.
Oh, and it runs on Solaris or Linux!
The client uses any Java capable web-browser... can't get any simpler than that.
You will still need the MS-Windows box to actually run the apps on and provide the display, etc.
Tarantella will not only provide access to your local drives, but also your printers (configurable for security).
The data is also encrypted, so it's safe to use this as a remote-access method via the internet.
http://www.tarantella.com/
As a disclaimer, I should mention that I not only use this at work for remote access, but I work for a Tarantella reseller.
With this in mind, note that I'm pointing you to Tarantella's site, not the company I work for (we won't see any profit if you get it from someone else).
I just happen to like the product better than its alternatives.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
WinXP Pro has "Remote Desktop Sharing", so enable that and simply use rdesktop from your *nix box. It's that easy. If you want your home directory mounted on your Windoze box, then use SAMBA on your *nix box as a PDC (Primary Domain Controller) and have your Windoze box log in to this domain (You can then setup SAMBA to automatically mount the home directory on the Windoze box as Z: or whatever). That should do it.
Of course, VNC is encrypted, it just isn't built into all VNC clients/servers. Usually, people run it over ssh, which has the added advatage over Remote Desktop that you don't need any new firewall rules (since ssh usually is already there) and that you don't have to figure out a new key management system.
I've been using VNC since it's inception and it works great for Unix to Unix with SSH doing the encryption. Here we are talkin Linux/Mac OS to Unix. Unless you buy some commercial SSH Server, or set up cygwin's ssh server on the Windows box then it's probably not going to be encrypted.
Most VNC's use encryption only for the password and use plaintext transfers for everything else. Not my ideal solution. Remote Desktop has encryption built into the protocol from the start.
If you like, of course, you can also run VNC over stunnel or IPsec.
I don't even think IPSec allows for you to communicate with machines on the same LAN on the same Subnet. Besides Remote Desktop has encryption covered already. We're talkin Linux/Mac to Windows communication. This is stupid any which way you cut it. Unix to Unix would use VNC over SSH. Who in their right mind would do something this stupid.
When it is useful, some VNC clients/servers (e.g. clients running as Java applets) have the encryption built in.
Name one that does encryption from beginning to end, not just the password. I would like to know if there are any myself.
As usual, the UNIX solution is simpler, more elegant, more flexible, and more functional than the Windows solution. And, as usual, Windows users like yourself just don't get it.
As usual trolls like yourself don't bother to read what the user is asking and bash anyone who doesn't tell them to switch to Unix. Your zealotry is only overshadowed by your stupidity.
Can I get an eye poke?
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