Installing VNC server/client in Ubuntu 12.04

Question

I want to install VNC server/client with the GUI in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

I found a tutorial for this task. But if I followed this tutorial I will lose my Unity desktop and ends with a Gnome classic desktop. I don't want that.

I can install Gnome 3 as described in this article along with Unity.

My questions are,

1. Can I install VNC and use it with the GUI in my Gnome 3 desktop?
2. If yes, then how?

Any suggestions are also welcome. Thank you in advance.

Solution 1

Ubuntu 12.04 comes with Vino VNC server pre-installed (but not enabled). So you can simply use that one without the need to install any other VNC server, it works just fine for most applications.

To enable it:

1. select "Desktop Sharing"

(or if you use gnome-session-fallback, select in the menu: Applications -> Internet -> Desktop Sharing")

2. Check the box "Allow users to view your desktop"

3. Check the box "Require used to enter this password:" and type in your preferred password

4. Click on "close"

and you are good to go.

You can test this right away by trying to connect from any local VNC client to the IP of your machine. If you are behind a firewall or NAT router, you will need to forward port 5900 to your Ubuntu machine.

Hope that help!

Solution 2

If you want to administer your machine remotely, and this may involve restarting, then note: (1) VNC will be available after restart through the VNC client, (2) if the box "You must confirm each access to this machine" is checked, then after restart you or someone else must physically be at the machine to let you connect again. Therefore you should uncheck this box if you want to be able to reconnect from a remote machine after a restart.

Comments

[Sajith Janaprasad]

thanks for your suggestion. I also noticed that, there is also Remmina Remote Desktop Client. Actually in my scenario client part is the important one to me. VNC server may be installed in a Fedora or a CentOS machine. Can I use Remmina to log to a such remote server?

[OM55]

Absolutely. Actually Remmina is my preferred VNC client and I use it all the time to access the default VNC server (Vino) that comes with Ubuntu.

[OM55]

You need to have open-ssh server installed. To install: sudo apt-get install openssh-server . When you connect remotely with encryption, the encrypted connection will be made through the SSH server automatically. You will need to use valid user credentials for the encrypted connection and then the regular VNC connection credentials.