VNC server setup

[marinestu]

Hello All

I have been looking on the web for a wee how-to that would enable me to access my Mums computer and take control of it for support reasons. My brother used to use MSN to do this when Mum had windows on her pc, I convinced her that Linux would be better for her needs and so far she is happy with it.

I am using Fedora 10, I have installed Linux Mint on her computer (I know but it is simple)

Any help or pointers would be a great help.

Thanks

Stu

[aleph]

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=94257 --- "every server setup imaginable", including VNC
Note that the best way of securing the VNC server is to bind it to localhost only and tunnel the local port via SSH.

For example, in your /etc/sysconfig/vncservers file, add the option "-localhost" to the variable VNCSERVERARGS[2], so the vnc daemon on the server binds only to its local address, thus denying access to non-secure, direct connections from any hosts. At the client side, first make a local SSH tunnel to the server machine like

$ ssh -l LOGIN_NAME -L LOCAL_PORT:localhost:VNC_SERVER_LISTENING_PORT SERVER_HOSTNAME"

where
LOGIN_NAME: your login name on the server
LOCAL_PORT: any non-used, unprivileged port number (one above 1024)
VNC_SERVER_LISTENING_PORT: the port number on which the VNC daemon is listening (on the server machine)
and
SERVER_HOSTNAME: hostname of ip address of the machine on which the vnc daemon is running

After that, run the command "vncviewer localhost:LOCAL_PORT" and you are done. Alternatively, you can select the vnc viewer app from the GUI and type the hostname/port number combination in the GUI dialog.

Good luck

[marinestu]

Hello Aleph

thanks for your help here...this will be my weekend project.

Thanks

Stu