VNC Basics

Linux Administration

Not much to say here. I wanted a way to access my desktop at work. The way to do this is with x11vnc which will attach a VNC process to an existing X display. This page is extremely useful:

http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/

vncserver won't cut it; it can't latch onto an existing X11 session. You need x11vnc. Just run

x11vnc -display :0 -rfbauth /path/to/passwordfile

Default path/to/passwordfile is ~.vnc/passwd, hence:

x11vnc -display :0 -rfbauth ~/.vnc/passwd

If you don't have a password file, run x11vnc without one and it will tell you how to make one.

You need to have vncviewer running at home, and then point it at your remote machine, at whatever display x11vnc tells you.