Create Chrome Firefox apps using raw socket APIs that are available about novnc HOT 12 CLOSED

That's a great idea. Chrome extensions can make direct network connections so no proxy/websockify would be needed. I authorize you to fork noVNC and make it so ;-) I.e. I will probably get around to someday because it's definitely worthwhile, but if you want it any time soon then go for it.

from novnc.

i wish i had time but heavily into other projects at the moment. Please someone else take the ball and run with it.

from novnc.

So I was searching around today and realized that Chrome extensions cannot create raw socket connections. Extensions can create WebSocket connections just like normal JavaScript. Even NaCl is restricted to WebSockets based connections.

There is some discussion about either raw socket ability of a built-in WebSocket to socket proxy to support SSH connections in Chrome OS: http://code.google.com/p/chromium-os/issues/detail?id=9668

Anyways, until that changes, there isn't much point in going down this road, unfortunately, so I'm closing the issue. If you hear any solid information that this may change please re-open the issue.

from novnc.

And we're back. Chrome just added a API for extensions that allows arbitrary socket connection using a WebSockets to socket proxy that has base64 encoded data. Sounds familiar somehow ;-)

http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision=85757

from novnc.

The API for WebSockets to socket proxy is Chrome OS only. However, there is active work happening to allow direct socket connections from chrome extensions. It's not functional yet, but I expect it will be in the next few weeks.

• This blog posts mentions the ongoing work in the second paragraph: http://peter.sh/2011/12/reverse-flexible-rows-and-columns-socket-api-and-panels/
• Here is a recent commit that introduces the (non-functional) API: http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome?view=rev&revision=111800
• Here is the API documentation: http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/trunk/experimental.socket.html

Anyways, good news for being able to run noVNC in Chrome and being able to connect directly to standard VNC servers. Note that libvncserver now includes WebSocket support (actually bundles noVNC too) and this is possible for other VNC servers as well.

from novnc.

Just FYI, this isn't experimental anymore since Chrome 24:
http://developer.chrome.com/apps/socket.html
http://developer.chrome.com/apps/app_network.html

from novnc.

Here is an gist of an old patch for creating noVNC as a Chrome packaged app that uses Chrome raw sockets: https://gist.github.com/kanaka/7370898 It's out of date and needs some cleanup to apply to master, and but it worked (mostly) against an old version of the tree.

from novnc.

Here is the Firefox OS API docs for TCP Sockets: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI/TCP_Socket

from novnc.

One more bit of information. The W3C has an active proposal for bringing some standardization to the Raw socket API for installed web applications: http://www.w3.org/2012/sysapps/raw-sockets/

from novnc.

Hosting a HTTP server in a Chrome extension, inception? This brings so many possibility's for communicating with existing systems

from novnc.

@kanaka's W3C link died, this seems to be the latest version: https://www.w3.org/TR/tcp-udp-sockets/ (the group has closed down though according to https://www.w3.org/2012/sysapps/).

Firefox OS has also been retired, its API docs are also no longer relevant.

Chrome apps are also being removed.

With that in mind, I guess that this issue can no longer be solved and it is better to close it?

from novnc.

It sure looks like it, thanks for the research.

from novnc.