RealVNC

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RealVNC
The RealVNC viewer in action (pictured with resolution scaling)
Developed by	RealVNC
Latest release	4.1.2 (Free) / 4.4.1 (Personal) / 4.4.1 (Enterprise) / May 28, 2008
OS	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, HP-UX, Solaris (Enterprise only)
Genre	Remote administration
License	GPL / Commercial
Website	www.realvnc.com

RealVNC is a server and client application for the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) protocol to control another computer's screen remotely. RealVNC is produced by the company RealVNC Ltd., which was founded by the same AT&T team that created the original VNC program. RealVNC can be seen as a continuation of the original VNC program. RealVNC runs on Windows, Mac OS X (Enterprise edition only), and many Unix-like operating systems (Free & Enterprise editions only). There is also a RealVNC client which runs on the Java platform. There are beta versions of the Enterprise edition for Pocket PC and 'VNC-over-HTTP' tunnelling for Windows and Linux.

RealVNC comes in several editions:

Free Edition - free, open source version distributed under the GNU General Public License
Personal Edition - commercial version geared towards home or small business users; only runs on Windows
Enterprise Edition - commercial version geared towards large enterprises; runs on Windows, Mac OS X and various flavours of Unix

The RealVNC free edition is included in almost all Linux distributions under the package name "vnc".

As of release 4.3 (released August 2007) there are variations of both the Personal and Enterprise editions for 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

The latest release (4.4) includes several highly requested new features, such as HTTP proxy support, a chat feature and an address book.

[edit] Keyboard shortcuts

RealVNC can run in full screen mode and uses F8 as the default key for bringing up an options menu, including switching off full screen mode.

Real VNC uses TCP port 5900 as default, when making a connection over the internet it is required to open this port in the local firewall as well as configuring port forwarding to forward TCP Port 5900 (or the customized port respectively) to the local machine address if used in behind a NAT Router.

As an alternative, VNC can be tunneled through SSH, avoiding the opening of additional ports and automatically traversing the NAT router. SSH also provides encryption of the connection between the VNC server and viewer.