Connecting to Ubuntu using UltraVNC

[iversa]

I'm a beginner to Linux/Ubuntu (I know windows servers very well) and new to Amazon Web Services as well. I have deployed an instance of Ubuntu 12.04 on AWS.

I successfully ran this command to install the desktop GUI sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Now I'm trying to use UltraVNC viewer to connect to the instance but can't get it to work. I have opened port 5900 in AWS security groups but not sure if I have to open the port on Ubuntu server as well. I tried but not sure if it worked.

What do I need to do in order to connect to the using UltraVNC? Keep in mind that I'm a beginner.

When I run netstat -a there are the results I get

Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
tcp 0 0 *:ssh *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 localhost:ipp *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 224 ip-10-159-46-181.ec:ssh BMTNON37-30967769:29341 ESTABLISHED
tcp6 0 0 [::]:ssh [::]:* LISTEN
tcp6 0 0 ip6-localhost:ipp [::]:* LISTEN
udp 0 0 *:mdns *:*
udp 0 0 *:45024 *:*
udp 0 0 *:bootpc *:*
udp6 0 0 [::]:mdns [::]:*
udp6 0 0 [::]:51923 [::]:*

[bswilson]

I don't see your system listening on port 5900. Is the VNC server running? Try the command "vnc4server" from the command line. Once you've done that and believe it is running, try the command "netstat -atpn" to ensure you see something in the neighborhood of port 5900 that looks like VNC.

Next, have you tried checking on the Firewall running on your Ubuntu image? You may want to try updating your rules as well, with these commands:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5900 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

[iversa]

@bswilson

Thanks for helping but it is not working yet...

vnc4server was not installed. After installing and starting vncserver it prompted me to enter a password which all worked fine

Then I ran
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5900 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

Then with this command netstat -atpnI get:

Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:6001 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 2182/Xvnc4
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 464 10.159.46.181:22 184.149.17.4:36664 ESTABLISHED -
tcp6 0 0 :::5901 :::* LISTEN 2182/Xvnc4
tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN -
tcp6 0 0 ::1:631 :::* LISTEN -
ubuntu@ip-10-159-46-181:~$

From what I can tell vncserver is running now. Is there anything I'm missing? How can I find out if the port 5900 is open both on the server and on AWS?

[steeldriver]

It looks like the vncserver is listening on 5901 not 5900 - basically unless you ask for a specific port / display number it chooses the next free one

What I typically do is ssh in and then start vncserver on a specific display e.g.

vncserver -geometry 1440x900 :5

(it will complain if display :5 / port 5905 is already in use) then you *know* which port to open (5900 + display #)

In fact I'd recommend tunneling VNC over SSH - you still need to know which port/display you started the server on in order to set the tunnel end(s) - but you *don't* need to mess with your actual firewall / open ports because regardless of the VNC port, everything goes externally via your (fixed) SSH port.

[iversa]

I installed sudo apt-get install nmap

Ran this command nmap -v -PN <host>

These are the results and it appears that port 5900 is there but state is closed. How can I open the port?

Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-06-06 10:08 UTC
Initiating Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 10:08
Completed Parallel DNS resolution of 1 host. at 10:08, 0.00s elapsed
Initiating Connect Scan at 10:08
Scanning <host> [1000 ports]
Discovered open port 22/tcp on <host>
Completed Connect Scan at 10:08, 4.41s elapsed (1000 total ports)
Nmap scan report for<host>
Host is up (0.00089s latency).
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
5900/tcp closed vnc

[iversa]

Thanks for the suggestion SlugSlug. Like I said I'm a beginner at Ubuntu/Linux

What are the steps to setup VNC over ssh

[SlugSlug]

As suggested you should run VNC over ssh

I find x11vnc works best for me


I use putty at work with ssh tunnels setup to connect to home
run
x11vnc &

then in works windows vnc to localhost

[iversa]

Also I can telnet to port 22 but not 5900

[iversa]

Ok I finally got it to work connecting directly with VNC Viewer. I'm still working on using SSH tunneling.

But now when I connected with the VNC Viewer for the first time I got the terminal screen. I closed it and now I can't open it again and the desktop GIU does not start either.

How can I get to the desktop GUI?

[steeldriver]

Have you created an appropriate ~/.vnc/xstartup file on the server? That's what tells vncserver what kind of session you wan to run

You probably *don't* want to run a regular (3d) ubuntu session over VNC - at least last time I tried it, handling of compiz was pretty flaky