Recently I wanted to establish a remote graphical connection to a computer in my LAN. Outcome is miserable.
I tried first x11vnc with its variants like TigerVNC, /usr/bin/Xvnc. . Couldn’t start a server. Runge’s program said something that was difficult to interpret. I used to be able to use this program. (There was no LionVNC - I looked for it, because I thought lion might work better than tiger.)
Then I tried Remote Desktop Viewer, also know as Vinagre. Why should a program have two names? (I suggest adding Vino, as the third.) Already sounds not good… It was from 2011 and of course didn’t work. I didn’t investigate the reasons.
Then I tried KDE Connect. Couldn’t connect to KDE, probably because it doesn’t work over Ethernet. Maybe Ethernet is not a good medium for connecting.
Then I tried Remmina. The program indeed started, but wouldn’t allow me to enter Username in the remote user’s name field. Instead of typing in letters and showing the letters, the local computer issues beeps, once per keystroke. A few remarkable programmers are working hard on the project and maybe they will figure out how to take input from keyboard. This problem should not be that difficult; I believe it was solved 70 years ago. So there is hope there, and the program looked promising. Its interface is similar to Filezilla’s.
Earlier, I was able to connect to remote Linux computer using RDP. Didn’t work this time, because I couldn’t find out which programs to start as client and server.
Finally, I installed Anydesk. Worked remarkably well, from the first attempt! I am not sure, though, what part of communication leaves LAN. I think the reason is that Anydesk is one entity as server and client.
I am confused as to what you are trying to do. There seems to be a lot of “it didn’t work” which makes it hard to understand what you have tried and even harder to help.
I have used Xrdp for years on various systems and access it from Microsoft’s client on both PC and Tablet and the odd third part client too. The odd problem with launching the desktop environment I actually want but no other issues.
Similarly I have used Xvnc to create a frame buffer window and allow access over a network (works really well when you don’t have access to a real display as with Windows Subsystem for Linux - I run LXDE on a frame buffer using WSL and access it via a VNC client). Only issue with this is I don’t like the VNC client as much as the RDP client so I have stayed with RDP when ever possible which feels a lot faster too.
I you can post what you really want to achieve, I’ll try and help.
I am trying to establish a remote desktop connection to another computer on my LAN. I want to see the desktop and control the remote computer as if I am sitting in front of its monitor.
I have full control over the remote computer: I can do ssh login, run programs, go physically to the computer. The remote computer runs opensuse 15.3 with KDE.
Anydesk works well, but with it a third party is involved. Packets may go out of LAN and ports may be opened necessarily and without my knowledge.
Please tell me what to install and to start in which computer. The Remmina made the best impression in its design but didn’t work, likely because of a programming error.
OK, for me the simplest solution would be to install XRDP - I have done this on Leap 15.2 and TW but not 15.3 yet (OK, just tested now and it’s fine). This method will start a new session when you log in and not be a remote control for a currently running session on the remote system (see later).
Install xrdp via YaST. Enable and start the xrdp service. You will also have to open port 3389 which is the port that the RDP protocol uses. If using the YaST Firewalld applet you can simply add ‘rdp’ to the allowed service protocols as that is mapped to the correct port.
I am not familiar with Remmina but it should be a simple procedure to connect to the remote system. You do not say what the system is that you are connecting from but if it’s Windows or MacOS I would use the Microsoft RDP client but Remmina has a good reputation if connecting from another Linux system.
One slight wrinkle is that the desktop environment is set according to the code in /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh. Different repositories seem to have different versions of this file and it’s driven me mad in the past. If you have Plasma installed on the remote system it should all just work but if like me you use something else you may need to customise that file a bit. My test Leap 15.3 system has pulled version 0.19.13.1 from the Main Repository (OSS) and that explicitly tries to start a Plasma session.
I can give you code for different windows managers if you need, post the contents of /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh and I can suggest an edit if you tell me what desktop you want to use.
One other thing to watch is that I have had issues with running multiple Plasma sessions for the same user. So if on the remote system you auto login a Plasma session and the try and RDP to start another session for the same user things can go very strange!
I have jut done a little playing with Remmina and it works for both VNC & RDP on my other systems. Though in the case of VNC you may need to specify a different port than the default 5900 depending on which display you export.
I used with success KRFB, the only thing is that you have to remove SDDM as display manager and use another like lightdm and set remote login in sysconfig
Actually it works here - now - with SDDM installed on both, host and guest. rotfl!
First of all, thanks a lot to JulinaB! I once tried to get remote running using YaST and failed. (I think the VNC setting seems to require more tweaking than can be done in YaST.)
With your simple advice it was just
zypper in xrdp
systemctl enable xrdp
systemctl start xrdp
and it worked out of the box - krdp started the new session. The “wrinkle” manifested itself to me as an “icewm” session which I have never used on any machine. They are (and have been) all set to plasma. Well, /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh was set to “gnome”. That is not installed anywhere near. No idea why it fell back to icewm. All I did was replacing “gnome” to “plasma” in the following section:
SESSION="**plasma**"
case $SESSION in
sle)
if -r /usr/bin/gnome-session ]; then
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
export GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=sle-classic
/usr/bin/gnome-session --session gnome-classic
elif -r /usr/bin/icewm-session ]; then
/usr/bin/icewm-session
fi
;;
gnome)
if -r /usr/bin/gnome-session ]; then
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
/usr/bin/gnome-session
elif -r /usr/bin/icewm-session ]; then
/usr/bin/icewm-session
fi
;;
plasma)
if -r /usr/bin/startplasma-x11 ]; then
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
/usr/bin/startplasma-x11
elif -r /usr/bin/icewm-session ]; then
/usr/bin/icewm-session
fi
;;
icewm)
if -r /usr/bin/icewm-session ]; then
/usr/bin/icewm-session
fi
;;
esac
But what I am missing is the simplicity of the “olden days”, I assume before SDDM, I think even before Leap. Was it XDM? One just allowed remote in YaST (required packages installed, of course) and on the login screen of your local machine you just chose “start remote session” (not sure if that’s the correct phrase in English, IRRC it was “Anmeldung auf Fremdrechner” in German). There you were - even without being logged in to your local DE. Is there any chance to get that with SDDM?
/etc/xrdp/startwm.sh blows my mind as there are very different versions about! There is one version, possibly from the X11 repository, that goes through the normal Xsessions mechanism and I just use a .xsessions file in my home directory to launch the required session. Here’s the core bit of code, happy to provide the whole file if you want it:
#start the window managerwm_start()
{
if -r /etc/default/locale ]; then
. /etc/default/locale
export LANG LANGUAGE
fi
# debian
if -r /etc/X11/Xsession ]; then
pre_start
. /etc/X11/Xsession
post_start
exit 0
fi
# el
if -r /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession ]; then
pre_start
. /etc/X11/xinit/Xsession
post_start
exit 0
fi
# suse
if -r /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession ]; then
# since the following script run a user login shell,
# do not execute the pseudo login shell scripts
. /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession
exit 0
fi
pre_start
xterm
post_start
}
But what I am missing is the simplicity of the “olden days”, I assume before SDDM, I think even before Leap. Was it XDM? One just allowed remote in YaST (required packages installed, of course) and on the login screen of your local machine you just chose “start remote session” (not sure if that’s the correct phrase in English, IRRC it was “Anmeldung auf Fremdrechner” in German). There you were - even without being logged in to your local DE. Is there any chance to get that with SDDM?
Think that was XDMCP. Sometimes we forget that the X-server is essentially a remote terminal that just happens to run on the same physical box nowadays. XDMCP allows you to get access to a display manager on another system and simply login from your local X-server. I have had it working in the past. Here’s a link I found …
I was surprised that worked with SDDM, may be it works now but a couple of years ago not.
I use KRDC on the laptop to control the desktop on the pc with KRFB, I don’t know if I can use KRDC and SDDM on both laptop and PC to control, is it possible??
I once tried to get remote running using YaST and failed. (I think the VNC setting seems to require more tweaking than can be done in YaST.)