Alfred von Campe wrote:
On Oct 10, 2007, at 10:09, Dag Wieers wrote:
There is xrdp and I have packaged it for RPMforge, but I am not sure if it is completely usable. (ie. I haven't figured out how to use it and therefor I didn't make the proper sysv script etc...)
On a somewhat related note, what is the best/easiest way to set up a CentOS system to be able to access an existing X desktop remotely (like Remote Desktop on Windows)? I have used VNC in the past, but I had to create a new VNC session. I want to be able to access my existing desktop remotely and not a separate VNC desktop. Can nx do this (I've heard about nx on this mailing list, but have not yet read any documentation)?
Thanks, Alfred
I generally use NX for the desktop, but when I have to share a desktop I use the VNC stuff provided by vino. Vino gives you the ability to connect to a running X desktop via VNC. All of this is integrated into CentOS 5 very nicely, just make sure you have installed the vino package and set the preferences from the menus as System->Preferences->Remote Desktop. (Note: this is Not Windows Remote Desktop Sharing!)
Once you've got that set up, you can use vncviewer from realvnc (packaged as vnc in CentOS 5) to connect remotely. I usually do not open the VNC ports to the outside world but use the -via switch to vncviewer to tunnel the connection via SSH. To connect to the "primary" X server on homesystem.sample.com use something like this:
vncviewer -via homesystem.sample.com locakhost:0
Vncviewer will start up an SSH tunnel for the appropriate port to the specified system and connect the viewer to it... quite slick! It's not as responsive as NX over a WAN connection, but on those occasions when I forget to log out of the console on my home system it is invaluable.
Hope that helps!