13.1 Remote Administration ...more like Remote Frustration. Please Help!

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#1

Good morning everybody.

I’d like to get some help on this.

I’m pretty new to Linux so please bear with me as I will try to be as detailed as poss able despite my limited skill level. That being said if there is other information you need give me the method of getting that info and I will provide.

**System Specs: Linux 3.11.10-7-desktop.
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64).
**
**AMD Phenom™ II X4 945 Processor.
AMD Radeon HD 7750.
KDE Desktop.
KDM login.
Static Ip Configuration.
**

The issue revolves around as the title states Remote Administration.

I’ve been messing with this exclusively for about a week now to no avail. I setup as was intended by Yast Opened the firewall ports and figured I was good to go.
That however was not the case. It didn’t matter what viewer I used on either Windows or Linux I was getting no love.

ultra vncviewer(Win) connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901 Connect then Crash
Remmina connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901 Connect then Crash
krdc connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901 Connect then Crash

so I look at my /etc/xinetd.d/vnc because I found some posts some what related but removing the -once option seemed to help. But then my attempt to resolve this started yielding other **** results. Long story shot here is where am at with this.

ultra vncviewer(Win) connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901
Connects asks for vnc server password (good) displays kdm login screen (good) authenticates then …noting the kdm menus vanish and the default login background remains.

Remmina connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901
Connects asks for vnc server password (good) displays kdm login screen (good) authenticates then …noting the kdm menus vanish and the default login background remains.

krdc connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901
Connects asks for vnc server password (good) displays kdm login screen (good) authenticates then …noting the kdm menus vanish and the default login background remains.

Ive tried different geometry options, color depth’s searched through tons of older seemingly useless posts from the goldendays looked for bugs. (all best i could mind you)

Then it occurred to me maybe it’s a permissions problem or user problem so I log in as root and bam! This is what I get.

ultra vncviewer(Win)*** connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901
Connects asks for vnc server password (good) displays kdm log in screen (good) authenticates** AS ROOT** and were in

Remmina connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901
Connects asks for vnc server password (good) displays kdm log in screen (good) authenticates **AS ROOT **and were in

krdc connects to ip x.x.x.x:5901
Connects asks for vnc server password (good) displays kdm log in screen (good) authenticates AS ROOT and were in

This is good news and bad for the following reasons. The good news is it proves the VNC server is in fact running multiple clients can connect and get roots desktop. However the bad news is this is not the behavior I desire or need. That being I want to access my standard users running session. I want to be able to be working on a project and if need be login in from campus and pick up where i left off.

So the question is how do we achieve that?

I appreciate the help in advance.

P.S Its funny this is the one thing left to configure to make my transition from windows 100% complete and its being the most bothersome. LMAO!

#2

First,
It sounds like you want a Remote Desktop, not Remote Administration. Remote Administration is the ability to manage and configure a machine (only).

If you want to connect to a running session, I’d recommend you instead try passing X over SSH, and optionally point to a specific display.

As you’ve discovered, Linux is a multi-user OS so when you connect through VNC not only are you able to connect to multiple root desktops, none of them would be the same as for instance a local login Desktop (at least 'way back when I first looked at what you’re trying to do).

There should be an abundance of helpful threads in the Application forum (some might be here in the Networking forum as well).

HTH,
TSU

#3

Did you set a “vncpasswd” for your regular user?
Some more things, I experienced:

  • If I am logged in at the console, and I try to start a remote session with the same user, I see the same as you (nothing after authentication).
  • If I am not logged in at the console, the remote session works this way.
  • If I want to connect remotely to my console session, I need to use x11vnc at the remote machine:
x11vnc -localhost -display :0

(startet via ssh)

Hendrik

#4

btw.: I am using ssh to access my desktop (192.168.0.1 in this example) through VNC:
for x11vnc:

ssh -L 5901:localhost:5900 192.168.0.1

for a new session:

ssh -L 5901:localhost:5901 192.168.0.1

Hendrik

#5

Hey and thanks for the great reply’s! I did stumble across the x11vnc over ssh method and it does do what I want it to do however the performance was horrible.
The method I found was another post here on the forums:https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/496035-Configure-amp-Enable-VNC-via-SSH-Console-ONLY-openSUSE-13-1

Code:>
ssh -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 <hostname>@X.X.X.X ‘x11vnc -localhost -nolookup -nopw -display :0’

Code:
vncviewer -encodings “tight copyrect hextile” localhost:0

Yes it worked but as I already stated it was frustratingly slow
Is there a way to improve that type of connection I was quite shocked to see it chug like that when both machines are on my local lan and there is no real nifty configurations going on here.

And the merits of getting access over a secure channel are not lost to me quite appealing. But again it was so sloooooow.

Any thoughts on improving that methods performance?

#6

I use:

vncviewer -encodings "copyrect tight zrle hextile" localhost:5901

For me this works over a 54MB/s WLAN; not superfast but usable.

But not every version of vnc viewer/server supports every encoding.
Did you check the cpu and network utilization at both machines, to find the bottleneck?

Hendrik