How to Set Up Remote Desktop VNC Access on Ubuntu
Carrie Webb: Richard says, “I am a new newbie and need instruction on installing “log me in” on Ubuntu.
Robbie Ferguson: I love how there is a random do in there.
Carrie Webb: Oh, don’t.
Robbie Ferguson: That’s what she was stumbling over. I’m a new newbie, do.
Carrie Webb: Okay, thank you. I hope there’s more sense in there.
Robbie Ferguson: Written like you would say it, so looking through install “log me in” in Ubuntu. What log mean is it’s a web service that allows Windows and Mac users to basically access their desktops from anywhere, from any desktop.
Carrie Webb: No way.
Robbie Ferguson: So it’s called service but completely incompatible with Linux and as far as they’ve ever told me they say the development is happening for a Linux version but they have no ETA. That’s to me a company’s way of saying, “Yeah, we acknowledge Linux exists but we don’t really care so that’s the kind of impression that I got with “log me in”.
So what you want to do instead there Richard, what we want to do instead is just used the integrated VNC server in Ubuntu which is built-in to the operating system so you don’t really need to go with the third party service if you don’t want to. The way that you would enable that is just go up here system menu here, preferences, remote desktop is what they’ve named it now so click on that one instead. Forget about XDMCP, allow other users to view your desktop, allow other users to control your desktop threw this to on then down here turn off, ask for your confirmation but turned on require the user to enter a password and make sure you set up a password there.
Why do I want to turn off and ask for a confirmation because if you're away from your desktop computer trying to log in obviously you're not going to be at your desktop to be able to confirm that yes, it’s okay for this person to connect. So instead set a good password, set a nice, solid password in there and by setting that password then next time you or anyone tries to connect to your computer through VNC. They’re going to have to enter that password in order to get access.
So once you’ve got that installed, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the DNC but I'm going to give you a few pointers. If you're on Windows and you want to connect into your Linux Box, go to type VNC.org, type VNC. It is a freely downloadable application. It allows you to connect into your computer now from Windows or platform.
If however, you want to connect from another Linux Box just go into Synaptic Package Manager and do a search for VNC viewer and that will be the application that you want and it will be like X type VNC viewer something along those lines and then you would connect to your IP address so I have to assume that you know how to set up your router and open the ports. It’s fairly simple but email if you don’t know how to do that live@category5.tv and we’ll approach that in a future episode but basically you need to able to get to your computer from the internet now. So having an IP address if you have a dynamic IP address you may run into trouble because your IP address changes every time you restart your router. So check out No-IP.com I believe is the service that I would use or there is a couple of different ones out there.
What that does No-IP.com, this will allow you to use a dynamic IP address. What’s the one that I used here just to give you a few ideas, ChangeIP.com. There is the address there. That’s the one that I used myself and what that does is allows so that if your IP address changes it will automatically update so you get like a foe website address specifically for your IP address.
If any of that doesn’t make sense, please email me but with a couple of Google queries, all the terms that I've used so far would actually bring you up results that are relevant to what you want to do but essentially that’s the main thing to setting this up. It’s setting up that remote desktop and then setting it up like I've shown you here but then you need to be able to access that through the web.
Alright, default port is 5900 when you're setting up your router. If you need to open that up for virtual servers other than that you’re good to go.
Carrie Webb: Awesome, I didn’t know you could do that. I knew you can check your telephone messages from another line but I didn’t know that you could do that and that’s possible.
Robbie Ferguson: Yeah, like for example like I have our desktop on the system that runs our backstage pass so see how I'm in Windows XP now all of a sudden, right? So this is actually our backstage pass computer which is sitting back here so that just gives us quick access. So that’s another method as well power desktop, VNC viewer things like that but our desktop is the Windows basically versions.
Carrie Webb: Okay.
Robbie Ferguson: Yeah.
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