HOWTO Vnc

[npereira]

Does anyone know of a good VNC HOWTO?

Looking to set this up to control my desktop at home from work. I use to have Windows abd I controlled it thru PCAnywhere. But now, all my PC's are running RedHat 8.

[z0mbix]

VNC is actually very easy to install and run, just follows the VNC docs here:

http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/start.html

Running VNC this way does not encrypt the data sent so is not a very good udea over a public network/internet. You can tunnel vnc via ssh. There a many examples of how to do that if need be on google.com/linux

[cowanrl]

There is a link off of the start.html page to instructions on how to tunnel VNC through ssh. It takes you to this page:

http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/sshvnc.html

I never used VNC because it was too insecure. Now that I can tunnel it through ssh, it's a viable option again.

Learn something new everyday on this site.

[npereira]

Ok got VNC working nut I don't see my remote xwindow. Is this not possible?

[cowanrl]

Do you get prompted for the password from the remote end or do you just get an error message?

If you are getting connected, by default, VNC on Linux does not use Gnome or KDE. It uses twm. When you connect, you usually just see what looks like a blank green screen with a terminal window open. Is that what you are getting?

[npereira]

Originally posted by cowanrl
Do you get prompted for the password from the remote end or do you just get an error message?

If you are getting connected, by default, VNC on Linux does not use Gnome or KDE. It uses twm. When you connect, you usually just see what looks like a blank green screen with a terminal window open. Is that what you are getting?

I get the login, and I login.

It looks like X is not working. I only get terminal, I think it's what you mentioned as "twm". basicaly, I have no graphics just Command Line Interface.

I know I'm in cause I can start xterm and do /sbin/ifconfig and it's the IP of the remote station.

[cowanrl]

I'm pretty sure you can reconfigure vncserver so that is starts up using Gnome or KDE instead of twm. As a matter of fact, I believe there was a recent post on this site on this subject. I'll have to check in to it.

What I do is just enter nautilus at the command line in the terminal window. When nautilus starts up, I enter start-here: in the Location field. I then have access to the entire Red Hat menu system. I can then run the programs. It's not as good as actually being in Gnome or KDE though.

[mdwatts]

Using VNC (http://support.caldera.com/caldera/solution?11=010925-0001&130=1001432728&14=&2715=&15=&2716=&57=search&58=&2900=VsZhcKgoUy&25=6&3=vnc) from Caldera.

[npereira]

Found it....

Very easy but not written anywhere. When you log in to your VNC session, your home directory is ~/.vnc

Well in that directory is an executable shell script. The name of the file is xstartup.

Just type ' sh xstartup ' and your gnome kde or what ever will start up and you'll see the default Icons on your desktop.

You can also type ' switchdesk-kde ' and a menu will appear for you to choose your desktop environment.

That's all! If only this was clearly explained in the Doc's, we would not have to search for nothing.

Oh! Also, I don't know if this makes a difference, but in the /root/.vnc/xstartup I replaced the line
' twm & ' with ' switchdesk-gnome & '.

Also, for further costumazation, take a look at the startup script ' xinitrc ' in /etc/X11/xinit/

Later!