jupyterlab-novnc

This package adds a novnc viewer to JupyterLab. It's a simple extension that just runs noVNC in an iframe.

You can configure noVNC connections in the settings panel. You probably want to configure at least host and port. Additionally you can add a name to your connection to make it easier to find.

This extension is composed of a Python package named jupyterlab-novnc for the server extension and a NPM package named jupyterlab-novnc for the frontend extension.

Settings

You need to open the Advanced Settings menu of JupyterLab and configure jupyterlab-novnc. Add your desired configurations to the "configured_endpoints" setting as a list.

After configuration is done, you'll have one icon per configured endpoint:

The noVNC panel can also be opened from the command pallet.

For example:

{
    "configured_endpoints": [
    {
        "name": "Robot",
        "host": "localhost",
        "port": 6080,
        "resize": "scale",
        "password": "mycrazycomplicatedpassword"
    },
    {
      ...
    }
}

Allowed settings values for each item are:

{
  name: string; // optional name, otherwise host is used
  // autoconnect - Automatically connect as soon as the page has finished loading.
  autoconnect: boolean;
  // reconnect - If noVNC should automatically reconnect if the connection is dropped.
  reconnect: boolean;
  // reconnect_delay - How long to wait in milliseconds before attempting to reconnect.
  reconnect_delay: number;
  // host - The WebSocket host to connect to.
  host: string;
  // port - The WebSocket port to connect to.
  port: number;
  // encrypt - If TLS should be used for the WebSocket connection.
  encrypt?: boolean;
  // path - The WebSocket path to use.
  path?: string;
  // password - The password sent to the server, if required.
  password?: string;
  // repeaterID - The repeater ID to use if a VNC repeater is detected.
  repeaterID?: string;
  // shared - If other VNC clients should be disconnected when noVNC connects.
  shared?: boolean;
  // bell - If the keyboard bell should be enabled or not.
  bell?: boolean;
  // view_only - If the remote session should be in non-interactive mode.
  view_only?: boolean;
  // view_clip - If the remote session should be clipped or use scrollbars if it cannot fit in the browser.
  view_clip?: boolean;
  // resize - How to resize the remote session if it is not the same size as the browser window. Can be one of off, scale and remote.
  resize?: "off" | "scale" | "remote";
  // quality - The session JPEG quality level. Can be 0 to 9.
  quality?: number;
  // compression - The session compression level. Can be 0 to 9.
  compression?: number;
  // show_dot - If a dot cursor should be shown when the remote server provides no local cursor, or provides a fully-transparent (invisible) cursor.
  show_dot?: boolean;
  // logging - The console log level. Can be one of error, warn, info or debug.
  logging?: "error" | "warn" | "info" | "debug";
}

Requirements

• JupyterLab >= 3.0

Install

pip install jupyterlab-novnc

Troubleshoot

If you are seeing the frontend extension, but it is not working, check that the server extension is enabled:

jupyter server extension list

If the server extension is installed and enabled, but you are not seeing the frontend extension, check the frontend extension is installed:

jupyter labextension list

Contributing

Development install

Note: You will need NodeJS to build the extension package.

The jlpm command is JupyterLab's pinned version of yarn that is installed with JupyterLab. You may use yarn or npm in lieu of jlpm below.

# Clone the repo to your local environment
# Change directory to the jupyterlab_novnc directory
# Install package in development mode
pip install -e .
# Link your development version of the extension with JupyterLab
jupyter labextension develop . --overwrite
# If using a server extension, it must be manually installed in develop mode
jupyter server extension enable <extension_name>
# Rebuild extension Typescript source after making changes
jlpm run build

You can watch the source directory and run JupyterLab at the same time in different terminals to watch for changes in the extension's source and automatically rebuild the extension.

# Watch the source directory in one terminal, automatically rebuilding when needed
jlpm run watch
# Run JupyterLab in another terminal
jupyter lab

With the watch command running, every saved change will immediately be built locally and available in your running JupyterLab. Refresh JupyterLab to load the change in your browser (you may need to wait several seconds for the extension to be rebuilt).

By default, the jlpm run build command generates the source maps for this extension to make it easier to debug using the browser dev tools. To also generate source maps for the JupyterLab core extensions, you can run the following command:

jupyter lab build --minimize=False

Uninstall

pip uninstall jupyterlab_novnc