Remote Desktop on Xubuntu 9.10
So I was planning to work from home on the Friday after thanksgiving so I wanted to be able to access my work desktop from home just in case. Normally I just ssh and use terminals and such, but for some reason I decided I wanted a full desktop. I use Xubuntu at home and at the office, and there is no default VNC setup like there is with Ubuntu and Kubuntu. A couple of quick Google searches and I came across this post:
vincentkong.com » Blog Archive » Remote Desktop on Xubuntu.
It pointed me in exactly the right direction. Just a few package differences for Xubuntu 9.10.
Here are the steps I used:
Install VNC Server and tools
$ sudo apt-get install x11vnc vnc4-common
Once the tools are installed, setup a password for the VNC server:
$ sudo vncpasswd /root/.vncpasswd
Install and configure xinetd
$ sudo apt-get install xinetd
Now, enable the vnc service via a new xinetd.conf using whatever text editor you like, I prefer vim.
$ sudo vim /etc/xinetd.d/x11vnc
service x11vnc
{
port = 5900
type = UNLISTED
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = root
server = /usr/bin/x11vnc
server_args = -inetd -o /var/log/x11vnc.log -display :0 -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth -many -bg -rfbauth /root/.vncpasswd
disable = no
}
Finally, restart xinetd.conf:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd restart
You should now be able to connect with a VNC Viewer. Under Xubuntu I prefer the vinagre package.
$ sudo apt-get install vinagre
Thats it. Thanks much to Vincent for his initial post. This helped me tremendously.
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November 26th, 2009 - 14:47
Hey Marc -
What version of x11vnc is this for? It appears that the version supplied with xubuntu 9.1 is 0.9.3. With that version, I could not get the -auth option to work. It would let me connect, but as soon as I entered credentials it would disconnect VNC and the gdm logon dialog would reappear on display 0. It seems as though gdm the auth file is randomly generated folder in 9.1.
I downloaded and built x11vnc 0.9.8 and used the “-auth guess” option, which seems to work reliably. I’ve only restarted, connected, and logged on three times so I may be wrong
. I also used the “cursor -arrow” switch to change it from the X to an arrow.
November 27th, 2009 - 15:12
I’m pretty much using stock everything. The version listed of x11vnc that I have installed is 0.9.3.dfsg.1-1ubuntu2, the same.
The option that I am using is -rfbauth not -auth. I haven’t tried it with -auth at all.
May 14th, 2010 - 11:32
Congratulation for your how-to. I was just looking for a straightforward way to connect to my xubuntu 10.04 machine without monitor nor keyboard and it works fine.
Only a fix: on my installation, it’s not vn4-common but vn4server
Greetings from Spain
May 14th, 2010 - 12:29
Glad you found it useful.
I’m in the process of upgrading to 10.04 on most of my installations. Three down, three to go. I’ll post a new guide with the updated packages and steps after I’m done within the next few days.
September 10th, 2010 - 05:56
Thank you very much. I’ve tried so hard since yesterday. I’ve read a lot of things about this. Thanks to you i’ve done it in 2 minutes.