OS X 10.9 Mavericks supports the protocol VNC – Virtual Network Computing to connect 2 remote computers which is done via ‘Screen Sharing‘.
Here are 2 ways to connect one is using the the Screen Sharing application buried deep in the file system the other is a quick way using the Shared Devices in the sidebar in the finder.
Dec 06, 2015 There are a whole bunch of questions about very slow performance of VNC when using it to login to a Mac. Among them: VNC Access Slow. VNC connection to an iMac running Lion from Windows - very slow. Extremely slow Remote Desktop via VNC. VNC From Windows to OS X Screen Sharing is Slow. I had the problem also. I've gotten around it, as described. Aug 18, 2010 VNC is an incredibly useful protocol that allows you to remotely access and controls computers using a server or the Screen Sharing service, and the Mac Screen Sharing client app is an excellent way to connect to those machines, thus having a client bundled into OS X is definitely a great addition to the operating system.
Using Screen SharingSet Up the Remote Machine You Are Connecting To
For the machine that you want to connect to you need to make sure it has screen sharing enabled.
Enable ‘Screen Sharing’ via the System Preferences under the Apple Menu.
If the option is greyed out it will be because ‘Remote Management’ is on, Remote Management also uses VNC and is tied to Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) both cannot run simultaneously, disable Remote Management and Screen Sharing will be accessible.
Set Up the Remote Machine You Are Connecting From![]()
On the machine that you are connecting from whilst in the Finder, either click on the ‘Go’ menu in the Finder or “command+k” keys to bring up the ‘Connect to Server’ dialog box or drag the Screen Sharing.app lurking in the depths below to your Dock as an alias and launch that every time.
This is found in:
/System/Library/CoreServices/, you can get to this by clicking the ‘Go to Folder’ also in the ‘Go’ menu in the Finder. Whichever method you use to connect, the address method you enter is the same – vnc://ipaddress
When the connection is made you will be prompted to authenticate as an admin user account residing on the machine you are logging into
Enter the correct details and you will then see and control the remote computer on your screen.
You can avoid entering the username for the remote machine in the follow up login dialog box by adding the username to the connection string in the initial connection like so…
As long as the user exists on the remote computer you will just be asked for your password.
If there is a user currently logged you get the option to share their screen or just go straight to yours; you can ask the currently logged in user to share their screen or choose to see your own account not interrupting the current user by selecting the ‘virtual display’ button.
Connect Via Bonjour Computer in Shared Devices in Finder
Even easier than remembering IP addresses and connection VNC strings is to log into screen sharing via the Bonjour listing.
In the Finder go to the Preferences menu and under ‘Shared’ – checkbox the ‘Bonjour Computers’ a list of machines on your local area network will then appear under your ‘Shared’ devices in the sidebar, so now all you have to do is click the computer you want and then the ‘Share Screen…’ button top right.
Or if you know the bonjour local name of a machine on the network you could enter in the Connect to Server dialog box –
vnc://machinename.local but you’ll have to close any spaces with hypens and remove apostrophes. Connect Via External IP AddressVnc From Pc To Mac
To make this work to connect to a computer outside of your local network you need to have a static public IP address make a change to your router port forwarding settings.
So lets say you want your office machine to always be accessible whilst you are on the road and want to connect in every now and then. You need to know your router IP address and your external IP address.
Router IP address is typically a home network address most probably 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 with really easy default passwords ‘admin’ and ‘password’ spring to mind – if you can’t remember Google the model and if you have changed it and can’t remember get out your trusty paper clip, stick in the slot and reset the thing.
To know your real external IP address get it from http://www.whatsmyip.org/
Connect into your router admin settings via a browser http://192.168.0.1 or similar
Look for the Firewall section and anything that mentions VNC
If it does one doesn’t exist (likely) than add a new service…
The Service is VNC the port is 5900 – set it to allow the service and then send the service to your preferred machine on the local network (this machine will need a fixed local IP address similar to the router – its network settings can’t be set to DHCP.
Once that is all set up test your screen sharing connection from a machine outside of the network – connect in the ‘Connect to Server‘ from the Go menu in the Finder via:
vnc://externalIPaddress or vnc://[email protected]
You should see your remote computer behind the router – be careful here – since you are opening up a hole in your firewall make sure that your local machine has a harder password – if it is easy than you can be compromised. Numbers upper and lower case letter and symbols are the order of the day!
Vnc Client Os X
10.5: A number of ways to access Screen Sharing | 49 comments | Create New Account
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Will this only work if you are using a 10.5 Mac and trying to connect to another 10.5 Mac? What if I have a Mac running 10.5 and the Mac I am trying to control is on 10.4 or 10.3.9? Right now I am using Chicken of the VNC and they are using VineServer. Can they continue with VineServer and I will be able to connect to them with the 10.5 Screen Sharing app? Just curious.
The screen sharing worked last night for me connecting from my MBP running 10.5 to my MacMini G4 running 10.4 just peachy. I had previously been using Apple's RDC product to do that, so I don't know what other setup might have been necessary if screen sharing hadn't been turned on already on the mini.
Yes, you can use Leopard's Screen Sharing app to connect to Mac's running older versions of Mac OS X.
Leopard's Screen Sharing app is just a VNC client (like Chicken of the VNC). It is the first time a VNC client has been included in the client version of Mac OS X. AFAIK, it is a normal VNC client, so can connect to any VNC server, even those running on Linux or Windoze boxes. Keep in mind that even the client version of Tiger (and i think Panther too) has a built-in VNC server, which can be activated from System Preferences. So you do not necessarily need to run a non-Apple VNC server to control Mac's running older versions of Mac OS X. I have a Mac on my LAN running Tiger, with Screen Sharing enabled in the System Preferences, and my Leopard Mac sees it automagically via Bonjour; double clicking its icon in the Finder automatically initiates a Screen Sharing session. Too cool!
Does this app also let you type in an http address instead of the IP address? That's how I have my current VNC client setup (so I can access it away from home) and would like to continue using it that way.
Yes, you can type in something like this:
vnc://imac.local And it will prompt you for the username/password. --- --Chip
I was actually wondering if it would allow true internet addresses (mapped to the appropriate IP address), such as http://www.something.com. I have my computer IP address mapped to and dynamically updated to an internet 'http' address so that I don't have to remember my dynamically changing IP address (dumb cable company).
http and vnc are different protocols, but they use the same addressing. It will work with any hostname as long as it can resolve it to the IP address of a computer running a VNC/ARD server, but if you use http for the protocol part of the address, it will think you're trying to access a web page (or possibly webdav share) and it will connect the wrong software to the wrong port and you won't get screen sharing. In the case of your example, you would want vnc://www.something.com (although it's unlikely that the www subdomain will be used in this case).
---
I was offered a penny for my thoughts, so I gave my two cents... I got ripped off.
Don't forget, you can also type 'vnc://xxx.xxx.xxx (the x's are the IP number) in Safari. It'll launch the Screen Sharing app.
This implies that it works using VNC, so Macs running older OSes should be available... (...in response to the first comment too.)
What password does it ask for?
It asks for the username and password of an account on the Mac to which you are connecting. I wasn't able to get it to work with my default long name ('firstname lastname') but was successful by changing it to my shortname ('firstname'). Then my normal password worked.
--- --Chip
Oh, so it is just VNC? That's disappointing.
I hoped Apple could create some smarter protocol that would be aware of windows, scrollable views, buttons, etc. so basic UI interaction could work quickly without transferring all the pixels over the wire.
So many apps today -- particularly on OS X -- are full of custom widgets and eye candy that what you're suggesting it really more trouble than it's worth. Bandwidth is cheap and the compression used by VNC is good and fast.
When the server has a decent driver built in to the OS that knows exactly when and which pixels have changed (as seems to be the case here) there's not much gained by doing things the hard way, and a lot to be lost in complexity and incompatibility.
VNC is a standard tool, with software for almost any platform you can think of. Using this makes the Screen Sharing feature vastly more useful for people working in mixed environments. I applaud Apple for building useful, free VNC server and client tools right into Leopard.
Absolutely.
The expanded availability of screen sharing seems to indicate that Apple have seriously overhauled their VNC server. The VNC implementation in ARD is notoriously cruddy, implementing neither the better encodings, nor the server-side hooks into the windowing system necessary for good performance. 99% of the experience of a VNC session is decided by the quality of the server. One that's tightly linked into OS X's compositor should perform very well. Looking forward to 6pm tomorrow :)
When it's as well implemented and as fast as Apple have made it this time (a VAST improvement over the VNC implementation built into ARD), I'm glad they've stuck with a tried and true protocol - meaning that I can use it to admin a wide range of hardware that already supports VNC.
Right at this moment, I'm using Screen Sharing to access an old Windows 2000 server. Works beautifully and is noticeably faster than CotVNC.
It's actually a lot better then just vnc. I have an xp pro machine with ultravnc server on it. On the mac I connect to server, type in vnc://11.22.33.44 (the ip of said machine) it brings up the screen sharing app and asks for a password with the option to save it in keychain [sic] It then has the following message:
The computer '192.168.0.15' is running a VNC server that does not support Screen Sharing keystroke encryption. Text you type to this computer may be intercepted over the network. Do you want to continue connecting anyway?
I get two things from this. First off, the implementation in leopard supports encryption (by default vnc isn't). if the server has an ssh server, it appears you can set it to login through ssh and tunnel the vnc connection through the ssh tunnel so it's encrypted. For the non-tech savy, apple has just made connecting to remote computers with vnc 10x as easy. Now I'm just assuming how that works, but that's a pretty amazing 'undocumented feature' if it's true.
I've also noticed this way of connecting to windows servers running vnc is a lot faster than using CotVNC.
I gotta say that I am very thrilled that they stuck with the established protocol. As others have said, this makes it extremely compatible with both Windows as well as Unix variations on the theme. That means you can control those machines and they can be used to control yours. Perhaps that is not useful to you, but it is to many of us.
--- --Chip
I could not disagree more! Having integrated VNC is an absolutely wonderful feature.
At my printing company, we run 10 different RIPs headless, using VNC to connect to them. Before our alternatives were X11 clients or CotVNC (which is so bad it is unusable). The best of our options worked so-so (modifer-click or drag didn't work on anything). We ended up using a MacPorts compile of TightVNC. I just tried the native Leopard client, and it is wonderful. It supports screen scaling (which none of the other clients do), and the modifier clicks all work. The Network Server and Keychain integration is more than I could hope for. Only two things I see could be improved: An option to turn off the encryption warning, and anti-aliasing when the screen is scaled.
I was not able to connect to my ubuntu machine via vnc. Nor was I able to connect to my mac via vnc in ubuntu :-/
I was able to connect to an AIX machine running plain jane X11.
Finder => Go => Connect to Server. I put: vnc://p51.austin.ibm.com:5903 The :5903 is what normal X11 vnc clients would call :3 -- it appears as if the Screen Sharing application does not add on the default 5900 base. I did get some message about the traffic is not encrypted... But clicked o.k. HTH
Anyone figure out how to send a Ctrl-Alt-Del to a windows box? The screen sharing app connects but I can't unlock the system.
I had the same issue. Luckily, the first alternative I tried was successful:
ctrl-alt-cmd-del However, connecting to a PC over a secure tunnel is agonizingly slow. I suspect it is because Screen Sharing uses full (millions) colour. Does anyone know of a way to specify that it use 256 colours instead?
It seems that there is a problem with localization. Sharing a OSC 10.4 guest screen on a OSX 10.5 host system, the shared screen has an US keyboard, while both systems have German keyboard. If I switch the host to US, then the shared screen switches to German. Pretty confusing, especially when entering passwords.
I haven't been able to get it to work at all. The application just sits and tries to connect for ever and ever. I'm never prompted for anything.
If I switch to Chicken of the VNC, everything is just peachy. :/
For the record this is what must be done under 'Access Privileges...' on the Apple Remote Desktop Sharing settings (10.4.10):
If you have any VNC client such as 'Chicken of the VNC,' 'VNC viewers may control screen with password' is all that is needed to be checked along with a password supplied in THE BOX next to it. This is the password that must be supplied when connecting. If you are using 10.5's Screen Sharing feature, you need to check the user to 'On' and select 'Observe' and/or 'Control.' Note that the user name (long or short) and password are those of the checked users (See 'On' previously) I must say that Screen Sharing is much faster than VNC clients from my experience so far!
I need a way to assign display numbers to several Macs on one network. I'm using Vine Server on each one now. I'm wondering where I need to go to specify a unique number on each Mac; that is, if I'm going to use the baked-in Leopard VNC. Any thoughts?
Assuming that you're referring to accessing multiple machines behind the same router, I would do it at the router. The default port for VNC is 5900, and this is display 0. Display 1 is port 5901, and so on. You can use your router's port forwarding feature to map its external port 5900 to port 5900 of machine 1, external port 5901 to port 5900 of machine 2, and etc.
I haven't noticed an option for display numbers in the screen sharing client (it will, however, work seamlessly with them if it sees them advertised over bonjour), but you can just append the port numbers for this too. For instance, if your router's external address was 123.45.67.89, you could access computer 1 using vnc://123.45.67.89 (port 5900 is assumed), computer 2 using vnc://123.45.67.89:5901, computer 3 using vnc://123.45.67.89:5902... --- I was offered a penny for my thoughts, so I gave my two cents... I got ripped off.
OK, maybe I'm just slow, but I don't have a coreservices directory in my System>Library folder. Nor can I find the screen sharing.app via spotlight on my computer.
Any helpful pointers here?? Thanks! Jake Mac Os X Vnc ClientYou are probably looking at the Library folder on your user account instead of the main hard drive. Here is the navigation: Macintosh HD > System > Library > CoreServices
Or just copy and paste this path into Go > Go to Folder... in the Finder menubar and it should take you right to it:
Yeah, you do. Your computer wouldn't be running without it.
/System/Library/CoreServices/
How to disable ScreenSharing.app's localhost check Anyone attempting to use the new 'Screen Sharing.app' with a local SSH-tunnel (e.g. ssh [email protected] -L [lport]:x.x.x.x:[rport] ) has probably seen the error msg:
'You cannot share your own computer.' when trying to connect to 'vnc://localhost:[lport]' afterwards. I understand that Apple probably did this to prevent naive users from confusing themselves by connecting to their own systems. However, it's a pain for those who need to connect to localhost for ssh-tunneling. Here's a temporary way to eliminate this restriction:
From the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing skipLocalAddressCheck -boolean YES
---
FWIW, I still prefer COTVNC for my remote sessions, but it's still nice to have a VNC client now available as part of the core OS.
How to disable ScreenSharing.app's localhost check
i have screen sharing working perfectly over an ssh connection.
I initiate the tunnel ssh -L 5901:localhost:5900 server then in the screen sharing app I use a host address of localhost:5901 it works without the need of doing anything else.
Just make sure your lport number is a suitable number other than 5900.
I have my home firewall passing thru calls to VineServer via a different port than the standard 5900. I can connect to it (its a Tiger machine) from work (Leopard machine) with Chicken of the VNC just fine.
At home, on the home network, finder see's my Vineserver machine and connects right to it with screen sharing, I'm assuming its seeing it via bonjour since I don't have Remote Apple Connections turned on...or its recognising the vineserver? At work, tried to run the screen sharing app to connect to tiger machine, it doesn't even connect to the box. Tried vnc:hostname.domain.com:xxxx (port) Does it not recognise the port command? ---update--- Hmm...tried launching it from Safari instead of finder like someone else pointed out you could do, and it DID connect from there. Bizarre.
I can't find the Screen Sharing.app...I don't seem to have it...why? Just installed Leopard.
It's not intended to be launched manually (although it does work this way), so it's stored with the Finder in /System/Library/CoreServices/.
--- I was offered a penny for my thoughts, so I gave my two cents... I got ripped off.
I'm using the inbuilt vnc server in Leopard and when I try connecting via vnc client from any other pc on the lan, it fails. Authentication seems to work ok (on the pc viewer I get prompted just for a password by the mac) and the pc tries to display the remote mac screen but then just disappears. I've tried it from different pc's and with different vnc viewer versions. Do i need to set the display on the mac other than zero ? Any ideas ?
Thanks.
It looks like that only works if you have a full size keyboard with a 'del' key. It doesn't work on my MBP, but does on my G5 Desktop.
Sorry, that was supposed to be in reply to the Ctrl-Alt-Del answer above
Okay, it does work from a laptop. You have to include the function key. Making a total of 5 keys. ctl-alt-cmd-fcn-del
Oh, and sorry I don't know how to update an old comment.
I've been using Chicken of the VNC or JollysFastVNC on my MacBook Pro to access my G5 running 10.4 Tiger. After I installed Leopard on my MacBook Pro, I started using Screen Sharing.app because it is so much faster than any of the other free VNC clients on the Mac. I was very surprised to find that the screen sharing app is just a VNC client that will connect to other VNC servers (like Tiger) and not just other machines running Leopard. Whatever they've done, they've made it fast.
Some people might forget the location of Screen Sharing.app (and not keep it in the dock, etc, for a multi-user system). So create a soft-link to it.
Open Terminal and type (without quotes): 'ln -s /System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app /Applications/Screen Sharing'. This will create a link in your Applications folder.
Don't forget to escape your spaces:
ln -s /System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app /Applications/Screen Sharing
I needed a way to open Screen Sharing (to a specific host) in shell, after creating an ssh tunnel. This seems to be possible with an AppleScript application:
.. or whatever location you want to connect to. I guess you could
tell 'Screen Sharing' also, I haven't tested.
Anyways, this was one of the steps in one-click-ssh-secured screen sharing if you're interested.
Mac Os X Vnc Server
Yes, you can 'talk' to Screen Sharing directly also, try some like: with the IP-address of your choice :-) Worked in 10.5.2 for me.
I have already set up my OS X Leopard Server many miles away and did not set up screen sharing in system preferences. I do have SSH set up.
How can I turn on screen sharing remotely? Vnc Viewer Mac Os X
I have tried this
open -a System Preferences.app I'm sure the application opens on the remote server but of course I cannot see it. Perhaps I have to edit a plist?
From Terminal you can write:
open vnc://IP_NUMBER:5900 Comments are closed.
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