Vncproxy

vncproxy A VNC proxy that redirects to different VNC servers on different passwords

Author: Santa Zhang (santa1987@gmail.com)

This utility works as a gateway proxy to multiple VNC servers, and redirects client connection by password to servers according to routing configuration.

The routing configuration is stored in a sqlite3 database, which should have the following schema:

vncproxy(forward_key varchar(8) primary key,
         dest_addr text not null,
         dest_passwd varchar(8))

The forward_key serves as a password to clients. When client connection provides the correct forward_key, vncproxy will forward this connection to the VNC server at dest_addr (host:port). If the target VNC server requires authentication, then dest_passwd should be the password, otherwise it should be null.

The sqlite3 database could be modified while vncproxy is running. Connections will be closed if the routing configuration is deleted. For example, consider the following situation:

1. new record ('1', 'lab-node1:5901', 'pass123') is added to database
2. client A is forwarded to lab-node1:5901 according to the new record
3. record ('1', 'lab-node1:5901', 'pass123') is deleted from database
4. client A's connection will be closed by vncproxy

This is done by periodically checking the database records, and close those connections with invalid routing record. The checking interval is 1 second.

NOTE: If the record is modified but not deleted, then the connections will NOT be closed. So, if we modify the record to ('1', 'lab-node2:5901', null), then A's connection will NOT be closed. Modification should be done by first removing the record, then inserting a new version after a while. Since vncproxy checks record deletion every 1 second, wait a little longer (like 5 seconds) before insertion would be a good choice.

Currently, only RFB protocol version 3.8 is supported. And for authentication, only the basic DES based VNC authentication is supported.

Build it by:

./waf configure
./waf

And you will find the binary at build/vncproxy. You can install by:

./waf install

The binary will be installed to /usr/local/bin/vncproxy.