Jan 1 2014

Tunneling to VNC over SSH

By Menelaos Bakopoulos • Linux, Servers (*ix , scripting) • 0 • Tags: remote, ssh, vnc

You may want to connect to a headless/monitorless linux pc with a vnc server running that only exposes an SSH port.

I have used the following steps from windows.

1. Server:
   Run VNCServer
   
   If not running already start your server.  You can set the resolution using -geometry tag. This will open a new port/session.

   vncserver -geometry 1920x1200

    

2. Workstation:
   Create the tunnel to VNC portThis maps the local pc port 5905 to localhost:5905 on the remote machine. VNC uses ports 5901 to 5909.

   ssh -L 5905:localhost:5905 menelaos@menelaos.server.net -p 22

    

3. WorkStation:
   Create tunnel if needed of X-Server

   ssh -L 6005:localhost:6005 menelaos@menelaos.server.net -p 22

4. Server:
   Run VNCConfig to enable remote clipboardOpen up a terminal in your vnc session, and run:

   vncconfig

   If your running through a separate ssh guiless console, you will have to export the console display. Whenever running commands in an ssh terminal that use display you will get an error. You must run:

   export DISPLAY=:5

   where =:5 below specified session/screen 5. On my own server I have to keep the vncconfig dialog running for clipboard to work but this may be due to permissions on the configuration file.

Menelaos Bakopoulos

Mr. Menelaos Bakopoulos is currently pursuing his PhD both at Center for TeleInFrastruktur (CTiF) at Aalborg University (AAU) in Denmark and Athens Information Technology (AIT) in Athens, Greece. He received a Master in Information Technology and Telecommunications Systems from Athens Information Technology and a B.Sc. in Computer Science & Management Information Systems from the American College of Thessaloniki. Since April 2008 he has been a member of the Multimedia, Knowledge, and Web Technologies Group.

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