Ubuntu – How to access a machine through VNC using SSH

sshvnc

We have more than 500 systems running ubuntu in our office. And sometimes after installation we forget to enable to Remote desktop. So that we was not able to control that PC remotely. Is there any way to access that machine remotely using SSH? Coz ssh was installed in that remote machine. Also if that machine was in login screen we was not able to view through vnc. I guess SSH will be a good solution. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

Use SSH to get to the machine. Ask gnome not to ask, "Are you sure?" after enabling the remote desktop access. Then enable remote access.

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/prompt_enabled false
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled true

You could create scripts for this, too, maybe /usr/local/bin/start-remote-desktop.sh.

Use your favorite editor over vim if you like...

sudo vim /usr/local/bin/start-remote-desktop.sh

The contents of that file:

#!/bin/bash
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/prompt_enabled false
gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled true

Make it executable:

sudo chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/start-remote-desktop.sh

Add it to your default user configuration:

sudo sh -c 'echo "/usr/local/bin/start-remote-desktop.sh" >> /etc/skel/.profile' 

As far as the human factor goes in maintaining 500 workstations, you would love using CloneZilla. The one CloneZilla server provides pre-configured images for the workstations which can be installed over the network. You can even multicast them so that in just a few hours, to guess, all the workstations can be imaged with a common configuration, same version, etc... There's a good tutorial on dedoimedo.com.

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