HOWTO: Control the gnome VNC vino-server from the command line

[frafu]

I did the upgrade this afternoon and the update manager asked me several times whether I wanted to keep a specific old configuration file from dapper instead of installing the new one. As I kept the old configuration file for the remote desktop (and few others), I was able to connect with my vnc client at once after booting to edgy.

frafu

[srf21c]

Excellent! In answer to your question, I think the bottom line is this; If you want the vino server to start hands-free after a reboot, you need to have automatic login to the desktop enabled.

[bobpaul]

I know it's digging up an old thread, but one could install a windows xserver (cygwin has one, or Xming is good) and enable X forwarding in putty. It's even easier if your local machine is also linux:

$ ssh -XC user@host

Then you could open vino-preferences remotely. vino-preferences is a simple enough GUI that even across a pretty slow connection it still responds decently.

EDIT: I meant uppercase C for compression. Good for slower speed connections. Lowercase c will cause an error. Sorry. Thanks to srfc21 for pointing that out.

[srf21c]

Bob,

_great_ suggestion....much more elegant than my approach. Thanks for adding that to the thread.

Btw, have you tested it succesfully?

[bobpaul]

Yeah, I use Xming and putty's X-Forwarding optional from my WinXP machine at work to access my home machine all the time! Errm, I mean... I only do work related things at work.

Bigger apps, like firefox, are pretty unresponsive, but small config windows like this work just fine. For reference, I have 128kbps upstream on my home connection. I think your command line solution would be the best method over something like dialup as it might take a few minutes for the dialog to "stabilize" on a really slow connection like that.

[frafu]

To open the "Login Window" preferences, you have to type into the terminal after opening your ssh -Y connection:

sudo gdmsetup

To open the "Remote Desktop" preferences, you have to type into the terminal:

sudo vino-preferences

But, the changes made in the forwarded preferences seem not to be effective in the session created by the auto-login at startup.

[srf21c]

$ ssh -Xc user@host

Bob, I think the original command example you gave above might have a typo.

The lowercase -c option specifies the cipher to use, whereas the uppercase -C option enables compression. Did you mean to use the uppercase -C to enable compression? like this:

ssh -XC user@host

[FXFman1209]

Hmm. I know this is an old thread, but... does this work? I don't think you should use sudo with vino-preferences, because your vino preferences are per-user. If you use sudo vino-preferences, it would set the preferences for root, and not the user.

Therefore I propose that you login as the user you want to desktop control, and then just simply do vino-preferences.

However, I could be totally wrong, however it works fine for me. Thanks for the -X suggestion, i never even thought of doing that.

[theQmaster]

I have Dapper without keyboard and monitor and I need to connect the desktop to upgrade to Edgy. Remote access seems to be the only options thus far... I have access to a sh session thru putty.

I managed to start x, vino and gdm - when I connect to the box with VNC client it looks like it's connecting but the client doesn't display any window - it looks that in background... If I kill the vino server I get the windows that the connection has been disconnected....

What's wrong ? It looks that the server awaits for acceptance from the server but I don't get any window since I'm in sh, I only get a broadcast that a connection has been established


Any help?

[theQmaster]

Just realised that my vino server is not starting anymore

mc@gsi:/tmp$ sudo /usr/lib/vino/vino-server

(vino-server:31773): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:


Any good tips ?