In this tutorial, we will show you how to install VNC Server on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, VNC is a client-server software that transmits keyboard and mouse events from one computer to another, relaying the graphical screen updates back to the client. This technology is particularly useful for remote administration, technical support, and collaborative work. With a VNC server running on your Ubuntu machine, you can connect to it from any VNC client or viewer application on another computer or mobile device.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation VNC Server on an Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver server.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 18.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
- It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
- SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
- A
non-root sudo useror access to theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install VNC Server on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver
Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade
Step 2. Installing VNC Server on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
To install Xfce on your Ubuntu 18.04 system, open a terminal and run the following commands:
sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies xorg dbus-x11 x11-xserver-utils
Next, install TigerVNC on your Ubuntu server:
sudo apt install tigervnc-standalone-server tigervnc-common
Once installed the next step is to run the vncserver command which will create the initial configuration and set up the password:
vncserver
Result:
You will require a password to access your desktops. Password: Verify: Would you like to enter a view-only password (y/n)? n /usr/bin/xauth: file /home/chedelics/.Xauthority does not exist New 'server2.idroot.us:1 (chedelics)' desktop at :1 on machine server2.idroot.us Starting applications specified in /etc/X11/Xvnc-session Log file is /home/chedelics/.vnc/server2.idroot.us:1.log Use xtigervncviewer -SecurityTypes VncAuth -passwd /home/chedelics/.vnc/passwd :1 to connect to the VNC server.
After VNC Server started and created some of its files. We are now can turn it off to modify the xstartup file (startup script) to make it start with xfce4:
vncserver -kill :1
Step 3. Configuring VNC Server.
First, create the following file:
~/.vnc/xstartup
Add the following files:
#!/bin/sh unset SESSION_MANAGER unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS exec startxfce4
Next, run the following command to make sure permissions are correct:
chmod u+x ~/.vnc/xstartup
Step 4. Creating a Systemd unit file.
The next step is to create a VNC Server startup script:
/etc/systemd/system/vncserver@.service
Add the following files:
[Unit] Description=Remote desktop service (VNC) After=syslog.target network.target [Service] Type=simple User=chedelics PAMName=login PIDFile=/home/%u/.vnc/%H%i.pid ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i > /dev/null 2>&1 || :' ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver :%i -geometry 1440x900 -alwaysshared -fg ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
The next step is to enable the unit file with the following command:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable vncserver@1.service sudo systemctl start vncserver@1.service
Step 4. Connecting to VNC server.
To access the remote desktop on vnc server from the windows system, you must have vnc viewer installed on your system. There are various vnc viewers available to use. Download anyone and install it on your system, for example:
Congratulations! You have successfully installed VNC Server. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing VNC Server on your Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official VNC website.
