VNC

VNC remote desktop viewer

Instructions for RHEL etc

• .

Instructions for Ubuntu/Debian

• Install VNC server on the system that you want to access yum -y install tigervnc-server tigervnc
• If the server doesn't have a GUI install one e.g. tasksel
• Get list of available desktop sessions: ls /usr/share/xessions
• As the user you'll be logging in as (not root), edit the config:

vim ~/.vnc/config
  session=gnome-xorg # obtained from the list of available sessions
  geometry=1920x1080
  localhost
  alwaysshared

• As the user (not root), start vnc and configure a password and optional read-only password vncserver
• Then kill the running vncserver process vncserver -kill session:1
• As root: vim /etc/tigervnc/vncserver.users and add the user e.g. :1=david
• Start and enable tigvervnc service

systemctl start tigervncserver@:1.service
systemctl enable tigervncserver@:1.service

• If necessary open the port in firewall on remote machine (likely 5901)

Configure tunnelling

• On the machine using to access VNC running on server, do:

ssh -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901 -N -f -l <username> <IP or FQDN of remote VNC server>

• Enter the password
• Now connect to localhost:5901 (or 127.0.0.1:5901) using e.g. Remmina
• Note: does not work if you're already logged in on the remote machine as that user. If you need to log in interactively, ssh to the remote server and stop the tigervnc service systemctl stop tigervncserver@:1.service