How to connect to VirtualBox remote desktop client using VNC

remote desktopvirtualboxvnc

I am using VirtualBox 4.0 on Ubuntu Narwhal with guest OS Windows XP. I've installed the VB extensions and enabled remote access through port 3389 as suggested on several sites.

I am trying to access this desktop with a Mac OS X 10.5 using Chicken of the VNC. I am not able to connect to the machine using hostipaddress:3389 for my login (and I'm at a loss as to what should go in the password field).

Help?

(P.S. it's not a network connection issue as I can SSH/ftp to this machine okay.)

Best Answer

VNC doesn't work in this manner because VirtualBox doesn't support RFB; it supports RDP instead. RFB and RDP are entirely different protocols that are not compatible.

  • RFB is VNC's open Remote Frame Buffer protocol -- it uses TCP port 5900 by default, and also serves HTTP over TCP port 5800 to support a convenient client applet written in Java

  • RDP is Microsoft's proprietary Remote Desktop Protocol -- it uses TCP port 3389 by default

You'll either need to use some client software that supports RDP sessions, and/or install a VNC server in Windows XP (and then your Chicken of the VNC client will be able to connect), to get remote access to your virtual Windows XP guest environment.

I highly recommend the famously popular UltraVNC because I've had good experiences with it as a fast and reliable solution in all editions of Windows as far back as Windows XP:

  UltraVNC (free and open source)
  http://www.uvnc.com/

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