Next, make the system aware of the new unit file.

You can modify these startup options as well to meet your needs. The ExecStart command starts VNC and sets the color depth to 24-bit color with a resolution of 1280x800. The ExecStartPre command stops VNC if it’s already running. etc/systemd/system/ ĭescription=Start TightVNC server at startupĮxecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i > /dev/null 2>&1ĮxecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1280x800 :%i Next let’s set up our VNC server as a service. This will disconnect your VNC session as well. Press CTRL+C in your terminal to stop the SSH tunnel and return to your prompt. You can access files in your home directory with the file manager or from the command line, as seen here: Once you are connected, you’ll see the default Xfce desktop. You’ll be prompted to authenticate using the password you set in Step 1. Once the tunnel is running, use a VNC client to connect to localhost:5901. If you are using a graphical SSH client, like PuTTY, use your_server_ip as the connection IP, and set localhost:5901 as a new forwarded port in the program’s SSH tunnel settings. Remember to replace sammy and your_server_ip with the sudo non-root username and IP address of your server. The -l switch specifies the remote login name. The -C switch enables compression, while the -N switch tells ssh that we don’t want to execute a remote command. In this case we’re binding port 5901 of the remote connection to port 5901 on your local machine. The -L switch specifies the port bindings. You can do this via the terminal on Linux or macOS with the following command: We’ll use an SSH tunnel to connect securely to our server, and then tell our VNC client to use that tunnel rather than making a direct connection.Ĭreate an SSH connection on your local computer that securely forwards to the localhost connection for VNC.

VNC itself doesn’t use secure protocols when connecting. Step 3 - Connecting the VNC Desktop Securely

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