Ubuntu – Where is `vino-preferences` gone in Xubuntu 13.10? (sharing desktop in Xubuntu 13.10)

vinoxubuntu

I just switched from Gnome to Xubuntu (adding the xubuntu-desktop to my laptop) because I decided that with an Atom processor and 2G of RAM the full gnome shell experience is a bit, well, slow.

All is ok but for the remote desktop sharing.

I can activate vino-server correctly following these instructions (or similar — there was the entry in the session manager already), so far so good.

The problem is that vino-preferences has been removed from the vino package (1)— see this bug report for more info. It says (in Spanish) that now the vino preferences have to be set from the "Sharing->Desktop Sharing" in gnome-control-center. I have the gnome-user-share package installed.

But under Xubuntu running gnome-control-center gives just a minimal thing (correctly, I think), and I cannot find any way to reach the preferences settings of vino.

By the way, the server works (I am connected with it now), thanks to the fact that I had the preferences set up from the previous Gnome desktop session… but how can I access them in Xubuntu?

(1) See: 

(1)asus-romano:~% dpkg -L vino | grep pref       
(1)asus-romano:~%

although: 

(1)asus-romano:~% apt-file search vino-preferences
app-install-data: /usr/share/app-install/desktop/vino:vino-preferences.desktop
vino: /usr/bin/vino-preferences
vino: /usr/share/applications/vino-preferences.desktop
vino: /usr/share/vino/vino-preferences.ui

…probably referred to some older package.

Best Answer

For anyone still confused by this, Vino used to have the handy configuration tool called 'vino-preferences' until about 2014, but that was removed when gnome-control-center became able to control it instead.

[ Discussion on that decision, here: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=1411 ]

There are many distributions which can usefully use vino-server (which is an excellent VNC server), such as Lubuntu which I use - being based on LXDE, that doesn't use gnome-control-center and there's little reason to install such a big block of code just for one solitary function.

Instead, to access the vino-server configuration just install dconf-editor to control it:

sudo apt-get install dconf-editor

OR if you haven't installed vino yet, do both together:

sudo apt-get install vino dconf-editor

CONFIGURATION:

a. Open dconf-editor, then:

b. VNC settings can be accessed under org -> gnome -> desktop -> remote-access

Hope this helps someone.

SECURING VNC ACCESS over SSH

Let me just add here that for those wanting to pipe VNC through an SSH tunnel for secure remote access, you can use a command from the client end, in this form, to open the tunnel:

sudo ssh -g -L 0.0.0.0:5900:127.0.0.1:5900 your_username ip_of_your_remotemachine

This means "SSH, please open a tunnel to ip_of_your_remotemachine and make a TCP connection from it, out to 127.0.0.1:5900 (ie it's own port 5900 where vino-server is listening) -would you, and tunnel all traffic back to me / I'll mirror it out of :5900 locally - thanks".

SSH then does this;

You then open your VNC client (try the excellent Remmina) to your local address:port 127.0.0.1:5900 (which is mirroring the listening port at your remote server now) and VNC opens giving you remote desktop.

Read separately on turning off passwords for your SSH server and use keys only, for highest security.

Good luck all

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