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.

Comments

Author: Greg
Date: 2009-11-26 14:47:26

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.

Author: marc
Date: 2009-11-27 15:12:17

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.

Author: patata
Date: 2010-05-14 11:32:33

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

Author: marc
Date: 2010-05-14 12:29:03

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.

Author: BuRsTFiRe
Date: 2010-09-10 05:56:48

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.