README.md

   1 ## noVNC: HTML5 VNC Client
   2
   3
   4 ### Description
   5
   6 noVNC is a VNC client implemented using HTML5 technologies,
   7 specifically Canvas and WebSockets (supports 'wss://' encryption).
   8 noVNC is licensed under the
   9 [LGPLv3](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html).
  10
  11 Special thanks to [Sentry Data Systems](http://www.sentryds.com) for
  12 sponsoring ongoing development of this project (and for employing me).
  13
  14 There are many companies/projects that have integrated noVNC into
  15 their products including: [Sentry Data Systems](http://www.sentryds.com), [Ganeti Web Manager](http://code.osuosl.org/projects/ganeti-webmgr), [Archipel](http://archipelproject.org), [openQRM](http://www.openqrm.com/), [OpenNode](http://www.opennodecloud.com/), [OpenStack](http://www.openstack.org), [Broadway (HTML5 GDK/GTK+ backend)](http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2011/03/15/gtk-html-backend-update/), [OpenNebula](http://opennebula.org/), [CloudSigma](http://www.cloudsigma.com/), [Zentyal (formerly eBox)](http://www.zentyal.org/), and [SlapOS](http://www.slapos.org). See [this wiki page](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/ProjectsCompanies-using-noVNC) for more info and links.
  16
  17 Notable commits, announcements and news are posted to
  18 @<a href="http://www.twitter.com/noVNC">noVNC</a>
  19
  20
  21 ### Screenshots
  22
  23 Running in Chrome before and after connecting:
  24
  25 <img src="http://kanaka.github.com/noVNC/img/noVNC-1.jpg" width=400>&nbsp;<img src="http://kanaka.github.com/noVNC/img/noVNC-2.jpg" width=400>
  26
  27 See more screenshots <a href="http://kanaka.github.com/noVNC/screenshots.html">here</a>.
  28
  29
  30 ### Browser Requirements
  31
  32 * HTML5 Canvas: Except for Internet Explorer, most
  33   browsers have had Canvas support for quite some time. Internet
  34   Explorer 9 will have Canvas support (finally).
  35
  36 * HTML5 WebSockets: For browsers that do not have builtin
  37   WebSockets support, the project includes
  38   <a href="http://github.com/gimite/web-socket-js">web-socket-js</a>,
  39   a WebSockets emulator using Adobe Flash.
  40
  41 * Fast Javascript Engine: noVNC avoids using new Javascript
  42   functionality so it will run on older browsers, but decode and
  43   rendering happen in Javascript, so a slow Javascript engine will
  44   mean noVNC is painfully slow.
  45
  46 * I maintain a more detailed list of browser compatibility <a
  47   href="https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Browser-support">here</a>.
  48
  49
  50 ### Server Requirements
  51
  52 Unless you are using a VNC server with support for WebSockets
  53 connections (only my [fork of libvncserver](http://github.com/kanaka/libvncserver)
  54 currently), you need to use a WebSockets to TCP socket proxy. There is
  55 a python proxy included ('websockify'). One advantage of using the
  56 proxy is that it has builtin support for SSL/TLS encryption (i.e.
  57 "wss://").
  58
  59 There a few reasons why a proxy is required:
  60
  61   1. WebSockets is not a pure socket protocol. There is an initial HTTP
  62      like handshake to allow easy hand-off by web servers and allow
  63      some origin policy exchange. Also, each WebSockets frame begins
  64      with 0 ('\x00') and ends with 255 ('\xff').
  65
  66   2. Javascript itself does not have the ability to handle pure byte
  67      arrays. The python proxy encodes the data as base64 so that the
  68      Javascript client can decode the data as an integer array.
  69
  70
  71 ### Quick Start
  72
  73 * Use the launch script to start a mini-webserver and the WebSockets
  74   proxy (websockify). The `--vnc` option is used to specify the location of
  75   a running VNC server:
  76
  77     `./utils/launch.sh --vnc localhost:5901`
  78
  79 * Point your browser to the cut-and-paste URL that is output by the
  80   launch script. Enter a password if the VNC server has one
  81   configured. Hit the Connect button and enjoy!
  82
  83
  84 ### Other Pages
  85
  86 * [Advanced Usage](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Advanced-usage). Generating an SSL
  87   certificate, starting a VNC server, advanced websockify usage, etc.
  88
  89 * [Integrating noVNC](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Integration) into existing projects.
  90
  91 * [Troubleshooting noVNC](https://github.com/kanaka/noVNC/wiki/Troubleshooting) problems.
  92
  93