Archive for the tag 'VPS server'

SBDavid
Jul 24th, 2009

Install VNC in VPS server with Gnome

Install VNC in VPS server with Gnome

VNC, or Virtual Networked Computing, is a way of controlling a remote server just as though you are sitting in front of it. Like RDP remote desktop connection in Windows we have VNC for Linux. You can connect using a VNC client to a remote server system running the VNC server, then an image of the remote desktop is transmitted to your local computer and you can see and control the desktop.

Usually Linux servers are not installed with graphical interface(only text mode). However, for VNC to gain access of the user friendly interface like windows, Gnome or KDE have to be installed.

Note : Please make sure you have at least 128MB of unused ram to allocate for VNC. Also, YUM and its required libraries are installed (python, sqlite, etc) on the server.

Installation :

1. Login as root to your server and run the following:

yum -y groupinstall gnome (”yum -y groupinstall kde” for KDE )
yum -y install vnc vnc-server firefox x11-xorg

This will install Gnome and neccesary applications (VNC, FireFox, X11 libraries, etc) in the server.

2. Start up the vnc server with the ‘vncserver’ command and it will prompt you to enter a desired password. Just type what you want to use in and then confirm it. (if running as root, it will be in /.vnc or /root/.vnc or /home/root/.vnc)

3. Now, you’ll see VNC server is running by executing:

ps -ef |grep vncserver

Now kill the VNC processes,

pkill -9 vnc
rm -rf /tmp/.X1*

4. Edit xstartup file

vi /root/.vnc/ xstartup

Replace the last line(usually ‘twm & ‘ ) with ‘gnome-session & ‘ (without quotes of course). you can use ’startkde &’ for KDE

This tells VNC to startup GNOME instead of the default window manager, twm (or whatever the last line was).

5. Create users to VNCServer as follows,

Edit the lines below in the file /etc/sysconfig/vncservers and add a user (user should be a valid user created on your server and not just simply a name).

VNCSERVERS=”1:root”
VNCSERVERS=”2:newuser”

You can change the password of the VNCServer as :

vncpasswd homedir/.vnc/passwd

If you want to change the password for the VNC user root, run the following
command from konsole,

vncpasswd /root/.vnc/passwd

6. Go ahead and execute the command ‘vncserver’ again, and VNC will startup, using the password specified earlier and create a default VNC instance on VNC port 1.

7. Start up your RealVNC client on your PC, and put in :1, and it should ask for your password that you put in earlier.