How to set up remote desktop sharing through SSH?

Question

Is there a way to view (and control) a remote desktop through SSH? I will not have physical access to the remote host machine.

Solution 1

Method 1 :

This can be achieved with vino vnc server & remmina (both come default with ubuntu; if not install it by running sudo apt-get install remmina). Then Run Following commands from local computer in terminal prompt:

1. ssh -Y gman@remote. Use trusted X11 forwarding, otherwise it wont work

2. vino-preferences. It will open vino-preferences.

   

3. Also Click configure network automatically to accept connection. But don't enter any password, its base64 encoded. Then click close. Then run:

   sudo -s
   
   export DISPLAY=:0.0
   
   xhost +
   
   /usr/lib/vino/vino-server & 
   

   It will start the vino server.

4. Logout from server:

   xhost -
   
   Press CTRL+C twice
   
   exit
   
   exit
   

5. Then open remmina. Choose vnc under protocol.

   Under basic tab put server address in server field.

   On ssh tab click enable ssh tunnel. Under ssh authentication, it could be password or public key:

   

   Click save. And then double click connection-name(home-desktop as shown in the picture) to start browsing remote desktop.

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Method 2:

x11vnc is a simple VNC server and you won't have to mess around with Gnome settings or 500 firewalls, just install x11vnc on all your computers (with puppet or whatever you're using for mass-control).

Then from your local computer run:

ssh user@host -L 5900:localhost:5900 "x11vnc -display :0 -noxdamage"

Obviously swapping user@host for the username and hostname/IP of the remote computer.

And then use a VNC client of your choice to connect to localhost:5900. The SSH command starts a vnc server on the remote computer and then tunnels back that port over SSH. You don't have to open up any ports (as long as you can already SSH).

If your computers have funny display settings, you might do better to leave off the -display :0 segment in the SSH command. x11vnc will then automatically try to find the right display.

---

Source: askubuntu

Solution 2

Overview of Solution

Assuming you have already setup an OpenSSH Server on your host machine, you must first enable desktop control on your host machine. If you can first enable desktop control on your host machine locally, head to 1a. If you must first enable desktop control on your host machine remotely, head to 1b.

Next create a Remote Desktop Client profile on your client machine in order to connect to the host machine through an SSH tunnel and ultimately view and control the host machine's desktop through an SSH tunnel.

1a. Locally Enable Remote Control of Host Machine

Do the following on the host machine:

vino-preferences

• vino-preferences also in Dash under Desktop Sharing

1. Tick Allow other users to view your desktop
2. Tick Allow other users to control your desktop
3. Tick Require the user to enter this password
4. Enter a difficult to guess passphrase
5. Close

1b. Remotely Enable Remote Control of Host Machine

Do the following on the client machine, replacing 123.123.12.3 with your host machine's IP address:

ssh -Y 123.123.12.3

• -Y, Enables trusted X11 forwarding. Trusted X11 forwardings are not subjected to the X11 SECURITY extension controls.

vino-preferences

• vino-preferences also in Dash under Desktop Sharing

1. Tick Allow other users to view your desktop
2. Tick Allow other users to control your desktop
3. Tick Require the user to enter this password
4. Enter a difficult to guess passphrase
5. Close

Create Remote Desktop Client profile on your Client Machine

Do the following on the client machine:

remmina

• remmina also in Dash under Remmina Remote Desktop Client

Ctrl+N or Connection > New

1. Fill in your IP address [123.123.12.3] where it says Server
2. Switch to the SSH tab

3. Tick Enable SSH Tunnel
4. Point your Desktop Client to your non-standard SSH port
5. Set your SSH Authentication <username> and mode
6. Connect

View and Control Host Machine

On the client machine, when asked for <username>'s password, enter it to create the SSH tunnel. When asked for the VNC password, enter the passphrase you previously entered into the host machine.

If successful at this step, you should now be viewing and controlling the host machine's desktop from your client machine through an SSH tunnel.

Solution 3

I was able to set a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 install from a remote ssh connection with the following script:

#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:0
read -e -p "VNC Password: " -i "ubuntu" password
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access/enabled true
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access/prompt-enabled false
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access/authentication-methods "['vnc']"
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access/require-encryption false
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access/vnc-password \"\'$(echo -n $password | base64)\'\"
dconf dump /org/gnome/desktop/remote-access/
sudo service lightdm restart

The quoting is important for any of the string settings (single ticks inside quotes). For dconf to be able to write it needs access to XWindows, so that's why the export DISPLAY part is needed. I think you still need to be logged in to the desktop on the actual Ubuntu machine to connect with VNC after this. The dump command is just there to confirm all the settings took hold, you don't really need that.

Optionally you may want to do this if you want to keep the display up all the time:

dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/screensaver/lock-enabled false
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/screensaver/ubuntu-lock-on-suspend false
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/session/idle-delay "uint32 0"

Solution 4

1. You could use ssh to start a vnc session
2. Use Xnest with X11 forwording to remotely start a session and forward it to your current computer. (I do this from time to time with my pi) _{man page}

I use Xnest like so:

• Xnest :1 -ac &
• then DISPLAY=:1 . /etc/X11/Xsession

Solution 5

How to start Vino server remotely without forwarding X (command line-only)

Log on the remote computer as the user who will share their desktop and forward port 5900 to the same port on localhost. With PuTTY, the redirection is set in Connection/SSH/Tunnels. With a command line, use:

 ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 user@remote-computer

Install vino-server if it is not already installed. For example:

sudo apt install vino

Enable desktop sharing (matching the display number on 1st and 2nd lines):

echo $DISPLAY
export DISPLAY=:0
dbus-launch --exit-with-session gsettings set org.gnome.Vino enabled true
dbus-launch --exit-with-session gsettings set org.gnome.Vino prompt-enabled false
dbus-launch --exit-with-session gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false
/usr/lib/vino/vino-server

Start a VNC viewer and connect to localhost for the VNC server address.

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Comments

[erik]

If you are using vncviewer with a slow ssh connection, your command should look like vncviewer localhost::5900 -viewonly -encodings "tight" -quality 0 (on Debian/Ubuntu the viewer is from tightvnc) or vncviewer localhost::5900 -viewonly -PreferredEncoding tight QualityLevel=0 (on Red Hat/Fedora the viewer is from tigervnc), where quality level on both Debian and Redhat is between 0 and 9, where 9 is best, but needs fast connection.

[Khurshid Alam]

@erik Thanks for explaining how to use it with vncviewer for slow connection. I personally, will probably set QualityLevel=4 or 5 because 0 qualitylevel (which is 256 colors, I think) is too dull for me.

[John T]

I'm guessing you need an ssh command run from the client somewhere, something like: ssh -L 12345:localhost:5900 user@server_ip before using the remote client as described.

[Aquarius Power]

@gerky method 3 would be NoMachine, is currently the fastest and free (despite not opensource), and work on android too

[Bob Carlson]

For method 2, I had to use -auth guess and run it as root. Very helpful, thanks!

[Arthur Colombini Gusmão]

In my case I receive the error: Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyxhost: unable to open display ":0.0" after executing xhost +. Any idea on how to correct this?

[algal]

Got the following . Seems like this all assumes you are already logged in to a GUI console? No protocol specified Failed to connect to Mir: Failed to connect to server socket: No such file or directory Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused Cannot open display: Run 'vino-server --help' to see a full list of available command line options

[xjcl]

You might need to sudo apt install remmina remmina-plugin-vnc if your distro doesn't ship remmina with vnc support included by default

[Soren]

Where is vino-preferences coming from?

[Esme Povirk]

According to the Arch wiki, vino-preferences was removed, and Vino is configured using gnome-control-center. Unfortunately, gnome-control-center does not work for me over SSH.

[andrey]

mnagel's method is working for me, but I have to open a second terminal to open vinagre (sorry can't add comment because of silly reputation-rule)