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My server is Ubuntu 9.04 and I want to 'remote-desktop' into it from my Windows PC. vnc4server is not working even though I confirm that the services are running on the Server PC - 'connection has been reset' on every attempt. I've attempted connects with VNC Viewer 1.3.0.5, 4.1.3.0 and Ultra VNC. Putty works great, but I also need the graphical interface. Is there a way to do this that works?

Izzy
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6 Answers6

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I have found NX (No Machine) to be the most reliable - it appears to tunnel over port 22, so aslong as you can SSH OK (you mentioned PuTTY so I assume yes) you should be able to connect. Although not open source it is free for Linux with free clients for Windows and Linux.

We use this at work over the internet, the compression / optimisation makes a serious difference - our VPN is now redundant!

http://www.nomachine.com/download.php

Note: It is based upon GPL software, with some propietary addons.

Tom Werner
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Are you connecting to the wrong display? Use netstat -ptan to figure out what port the VNC server is running on. If it is port 5900, you should connect to 'yourip:0' in your VNC client. If 5901, connect to 'yourip:1'. et cetera.

Also, the log of your VNC server should be kept in ~/.vnc - take a look for any obvious issues.

joshk0
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Connection has been reset is probably due to transparent security device that can only reset connections. If firewall was a problem you would have got connection timed out error.

You can install XManager on windows PC and Run XManager Passive.

After running Xmanager passive, connect to Linux machine from Windows and type following command in putty / SSH Secure Shell Client

export DISPLAY=10.10.10.10:0

Where, 10.10.10.10 is IP of your windows machine. Do not put space before or after '=' sign in above command.

Then type some command like "gedit &" in putty and you should be able to see gedit in Windows. I prefer this over VNC as things look way way better using this method.

Saurabh Barjatiya
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When we moved to a Linux database server, XMing really helped. It has a simple point-and-click install on the Windows side and about 5 minutes of configuration on the Linux side. (Turning on XWindows for remote access)

Brad Bruce
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Also check to make sure that your firewall is not blocking the connection. Generally, if there is no evidence of an actual connection to the machine and you get "connection reset" errors, it suggests that VNC on the server never received the connection at all.

Check /var/adm/messages and other logs for details on the attempted connection.

Use this command to see what the firewall looks like:

iptables -L -v -n

If you still have problems connecting, make sure that you are connecting to the right port. You could also try watching the connection attempt from the server by using this command:

tcpdump -s0 -n port 5900

(assuming you are using that port - the default display, :0). If you understand the TCP/IP protocol, this will show you the actual network traffic so you can see if the attempt actually reaches the server and what the results are.

Mei
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Are any of your other connections getting through (ssh, http, etc)?

I have a eee server running ubuntu 9.04 desktop edition (can't install server edition with USB) and the machine will not accept ANY connections until I ping out from the server.

I have been, myself, looking for the cause and way to fix this problem. It seems to be a common issue with the desktop edition, but I have yet to figure out how to dissable this "feature".

DarwinSurvivor
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