Remote Server Managment

     Remote management tools we will use to install/configure the Linux/Unix servers from remote location.

    Remote management can be done using CLI and GUI modes, just we will discuss here about most commonly used tools.

GUI

1.    VNC Server / VNC Viewer

2.    Webmin

3.    Rdesktop

4.    Xming

CLI

1.    Putty (Most commonly used for CLI )

        VNC ( Virtual Network Computing ) Servers enables remote desktop access for Linux systems similar to MSTSC in windows. Generally Linux administrators doesn’t prefer to use windows access, But sometimes we required to have access remote desktop of Linux. In that case we need to install vnc server on our Linux system.

Step 1: Install Required Packages

     Most of Linux servers doesn’t have desktop installed on their system. So make sure you have installed else use following command to install it.

For CentOS/RHEL 6:

~]#yum groupinstall "Desktop"

For CentOS/RHEL 5:

~]#yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment"

Now install few required packages for vnc-server

~]#yum install pixman pixman-devel libXfont

Step 2: Install VNC Server 

      After installing required packages, lets install vnc-server in your system. vnc-server is available under default yum repositories.

~]#yum install vnc-server

   On CentOS/RHEL 6, you will see that tigervnc-server package will be installed.

Step 3: Create User for VNC

           Lets’ create few users for connecting through vnc. You can also use existing system users by connecting through vnc, In that case we only need to set vncpasswd for that account.

~]#useradd ravi

~]#passwd ravi

~]#useradd ravi1

~]#passwd ravi2

Now set the vnc password for all accounts need to connect through vnc.

~]# su - ravi

I have switched the account to ravi

~]$ vncpasswd

~]$ exit

~]#su – ravi1

~]$vncpasswd

~]$exit

Step 4: Configure VNC Server for Users

     Now edit /etc/sysconfig/vncservers configuration file and add the following to the end of the file.

~]#VI  /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

VNCSERVERS="1:user1 2:user2"

VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 800x600"

VNCSERVERARGS[2]="-geometry 1024x768"

Add above parameters to the configuration file. below screenshot is the example

Where VNCSERVERS is the list of users need to connect, VNCSERVERARGS defined the screen size. Like user ravi have a 800×600 screen size on his client.

Now start vnc-server service using following command and check the output

~]# service vncserver start

Step 5: Connect to VNC Server using VNC Viewer

  If your not able to connect to your VNC server then just enable the remote desktop allow from GUI Login into the server GUI mode then go to System Preferences> Remote Desktop> Sharing Allow

Provide the sharing and keep password for the session.

Now try to connect from VNC viewer from any client.

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