[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] Bug#728284: virtualbox: Please document or provide GUI option for setting VNC password for remote desktop

[Eloi Notario]

Package: virtualbox
Version: 4.2.16-dfsg-3+b1
Severity: wishlist

Please document or, even better, provide a GUI option to properly set a VNC
password for remote connections using the provided VNC extension. Although I
managed to confirm that enabling remote desktop server set up an VNC server
instead of a RDP one (as this would require the non-free extension), attempts
to connect to it always failed due to incorrect password.

It was not until I duckduckgoe'd (didn't use Google for that ;-)) that I found
it was required to set up a password using a quite obscure, non-obvious command:

vboxmanage modifyvm <vmname> --vrdeproperty VNCPassword=<password>

As a workaround, if a default password is not provided, passwordless access
could be accepted if properly warned about the security implications as soon
as the remote desktop server is enabled on GUI.

Once I feel more comfortable with how it works I'd volunteer to write a simple
text file which could be put under /usr/share/doc/virtualbox if messing with the
GUI would be too intrusive for a Debian patch.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.10-3-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=ca_ES.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=ca_ES.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages virtualbox depends on:
ii  adduser          3.113+nmu3
ii  dpkg             1.16.12
ii  libc6            2.17-93
ii  libcurl3         7.33.0-1
ii  libgcc1          1:4.8.1-10
ii  libgsoap3        2.8.12-2
ii  libpng12-0       1.2.49-5
ii  libpython2.7     2.7.5-8
ii  libsdl1.2debian  1.2.15-7
ii  libssl1.0.0      1.0.1e-3
ii  libstdc++6       4.8.1-10
ii  libvncserver0    0.9.9+dfsg-1
ii  libx11-6         2:1.6.2-1
ii  libxcursor1      1:1.1.14-1
ii  libxext6         2:1.3.2-1
ii  libxml2          2.9.1+dfsg1-3
ii  libxmu6          2:1.1.1-1
ii  libxt6           1:1.1.4-1
ii  python           2.7.5-5
ii  python2.7        2.7.5-8
ii  zlib1g           1:1.2.8.dfsg-1

Versions of packages virtualbox recommends:
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1]  9.1.7-1
ii  libqt4-opengl             4:4.8.5+git121-g2a9ea11+dfsg1-2
ii  libqtcore4                4:4.8.5+git121-g2a9ea11+dfsg1-2
ii  libqtgui4                 4:4.8.5+git121-g2a9ea11+dfsg1-2
ii  virtualbox-dkms           4.2.16-dfsg-3
ii  virtualbox-qt             4.2.16-dfsg-3+b1

Versions of packages virtualbox suggests:
pn  vde2                            <none>
ii  virtualbox-guest-additions-iso  4.2.16-1

-- no debconf information