Windows – How to connect from Windows 10 to the Ubuntu 18.04 VNC server

ubuntu 18.04vncwindows 10

I would like to use the Ubuntu 18.04 screen sharing feature (Settings – Sharing), but all Windows clients I tried (RealVNC Viewer, TightVNC Viewer, TigerVNC Viewer) have more or less an identical error message: The server works, but the viewer doesn't support any of the server-mandated security types.

I have verified that it works when disabling encryption (gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false) but that's not an option for me, I want to connect my Windows 10 Pro to Ubuntu 18.04 with the encryption of course.

How do I achieve that?

Best Answer

There is a bug report for this problem :
Bug #1281250 : VNC accessible from non-linux machines only with encryption disabled.

This bug dates from 2014 and has not yet been treated. The last entry in the bug report dates from 2018-06-17:

Common guys. This bug is still present in Ubuntu18, and it makes for a truly lousy out-of-box experience.

Just turn encryption off by default.

I don't believe that after four years this bug will be solved any time soon. The solution might be to use another VNC server than the default one.

See this Ubuntu Community Help Wiki for a list of such servers : VNC/Servers.

Another alternative is the cross-platform NoMachine :

Go from your desktop to any NoMachine-enabled computer at the speed of light. Thanks to our NX technology, NoMachine is the fastest and highest quality remote desktop you have ever tried. Get to any computer in the world in just a few clicks! Take what's important where you go and share with who you want! NoMachine is your own personal server, private and secure. Did we say NoMachine is free? No strings attached.

Another solution might be to install on Linux a server for the Remote Desktop protocol of Windows. xrdp might be a solution here :

Based on the work of FreeRDP and rdesktop, xrdp uses the remote desktop protocol to present a GUI to the user.

The goal of this project is to provide a fully functional Linux terminal server, capable of accepting connections from rdesktop, freerdp, and Microsoft's own terminal server / remote desktop clients.

Unlike Windows NT/2000/2003/2008/2012 server, xrdp will not display a Windows desktop but an X window desktop to the user.

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