Ubuntu – using x11 forwarding with ssh and vnc

sshvinagrevncvpnx11-forwarding

I am working on a remote cluster via ssh with the -X option, because I need to visualize data and graphs, over a vpn protocol. Sometime due to the instability of the internet connection I lose my session. They told me I could use vnc in order to not lose my current session, so that if the internet connection drops I can reconnect and continue with my previously open session.

What I do is to log in the remote cluster 'remote.cluster' and type

 vncserver :1

then I open another terminal on my system and I type

 ssh -C -NL 5901:remote.cluster:5901 myusername@remote.cluster &

Then I start vinagre on my system and I connect using ssh protocol. The problem is that I do not have x11 forwarding and I cannot open windows. If I try to connect using the vnc protocol with vinagre it doesn't connect, because I get something as connection timeout.

What should I do?

Best Answer

In case we connect to a remote X-Server via VNC we have the advantage that the graphical application will stay running even when the SSH connection to the remote is down. We can then reconnect to resume the graphical application. See also:

Differences between VNC and ssh -X

To speed up reconnection we may combine the connection to the remote with an SSH session by using vncviewer from tightvncviewer with the option -via. By this we can run on the remote server:

vncserver:0  ## or any other display number e.g. :1

to establish a connection on the viewer via an SSH tunnel:

vncviewer -via user@remote localhost:0

Doing so will need considerably more bandwith because the whole desktop will have to be transmitted from the VNC server. Therefore it may not really be a good idea for low bandwith connections but it may give you a somewhat better experience on high bandwith but unstable connections as compared with X-forwarding.

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Ubuntu – VNC Setup over SSH

I did not see from your description that you started the vnc server.

vncserver :1 -name "My-Server" -geometry 1600x1100

don't do that as root tho. Run is as a regular user. I have a similar post for setting up vnc4server on SuperUser.com: connecting via VNC

Now for the putty setup, the Source port should be 5901 and the Destination should be localhost:5901

When you connect from windows your command should look like this:

vncviewer.exe -connect Server:1

Ubuntu – Start vino vnc server from ssh client

In another forum, forum.developer.nvidia.com, "nekokeitai" wrote something which worked for me. These commands can be used via ssh on the remote Ubuntu 18.04 PC:

Install vino:

sudo apt install vino

Find the UUIDs of your connections and use them as a comma separated list inside the square brackets of the last configuration line. I have only tried one UUID inside the single quotes, though:

nmcli connection show

Configure vino:

gsettings set org.gnome.Vino prompt-enabled false
gsettings set org.gnome.Vino require-encryption false
dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/sharing/vino-server/enabled-connections "['']"

Start vino:

export DISPLAY=:0 && /usr/lib/vino/vino-server

Now, on the local PC use remmina with VNC protocol to connect to the remote PC.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – VNC Setup over SSH

Ubuntu – Start vino vnc server from ssh client

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