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Tutorial: Remote GUI on Unix
by Jesse Campbell - Sunday, 21 November 2010, 07:54 PM
How to launch a remote GUI on a Unix system

1. Get SSH access.
2. Run, vncserver -geometry 800x600
3. Set a password if asked.
4. If VNC is not installed, Run, sudo apt-get install vncserver
5. Connect to the server with a VNC Viewer

Note: The server TCP port must be accessible so you may need to configure a firewall.

Example using afsconnect1.njit.edu

1. Login via SSH to
afsconnect1.njit.edu using your UCID and password.
2. Run, vncserver -geometry 800x600
3. Set a password if asked.
4. Run VNC Viewer and connect to afsconnect1.njit.edu:5901 (5901 = 5900 + :1)

You can run: firefox, eclipse, jedit, thunderbird, pidgin, xterm, java...

Changing the GUI

You can test window managers by running them from a GUI console.

For a permanent change, edit (home)/.vnc/xstartup

#!/bin/sh
...
xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
your_windows_manager &


Replace your_windows_manager with:


gnome-session
Gnome

twm Tab Window Manager
dtwm CDE
fvwm F Virtual Window Manager


Close your VNC server using vncserver -kill :1

VNC Clients: UltraVNC, TightVNC, RealVNC
SSH Clients: PuTTY, Bitvise Tunnelier

Francisco
Re: Tutorial: Remote GUI on Unix
by Francisco Mateo - Monday, 22 November 2010, 03:08 PM

Hi Jesse,

Why are we using afs?  Don't we have to do the entire project on AWS?