Product docs and API reference are now on Akamai TechDocs.
Search product docs.
Search for “” in product docs.
Search API reference.
Search for “” in API reference.
Search Results
 results matching 
 results
No Results
Filters
Install and Configure VNC Server on Centos 8
- Ubuntu 20.04
- Deprecated guides:
- Ubuntu 18.04
- Ubuntu 16.04
- Ubuntu 12.04
Traducciones al EspañolEstamos traduciendo nuestros guías y tutoriales al Español. Es posible que usted esté viendo una traducción generada automáticamente. Estamos trabajando con traductores profesionales para verificar las traducciones de nuestro sitio web. Este proyecto es un trabajo en curso.
Virtual Network Computing (VNC) allows you to connect to and control a remote desktop environment. It is common to use VNC to operate your server with a full desktop experience. This guide walks you through the steps to install, configure, and use VNC on CentOS 8.
Before You Begin
If you have not already done so, create a Linode account and Compute Instance. See our Getting Started with Linode and Creating a Compute Instance guides.
Follow our Setting Up and Securing a Compute Instance guide to update your system. You may also wish to set the timezone, configure your hostname, create a limited user account, and harden SSH access.
In the examples that follow, change
192.0.2.0
to the IP address for your CentOS 8 machine.
sudo
. If you are not familiar with the sudo
command, see the Linux Users and Groups
guide.Install a Desktop GUI
These steps walk you through installing a desktop environment. If you already have a desktop environment installed on your CentOS machine, skip to the next section.
GNOME is CentOS 8’s default desktop environment and the one used in this guide.
Install the GNOME package group.
sudo yum group install "GNOME"
Alternatively, you can install the “Server with GUI” group to get the GNOME packages along with additional server packages.
sudo yum group install "Server with GUI"
To get a list of packages installed by each group, use the command
sudo yum groupinfo
followed by the group name in quotes as shown below:sudo yum groupinfo "Server with GUI"
Install and Configure the VNC Server
Several VNC options are available for CentOS. This guide uses the open-source TigerVNC software, a popular option and one that can be found in CentOS’s default repositories.
Install the TigerVNC server software.
sudo yum install tigervnc-server
Using your preferred text editor, add a line to the
/etc/tigervnc/vncserver.users
file for each user for whom a remote desktop is being configured. In the following example, one user —userA
— is configured for display port number1
.:1=userA
The remainder of this guide uses the above example user and display port.
Note Display port numbers determine the port numbers on which VNC servers are made available. VNC server ports are5900
plus the display port number — thus,5901
for the example above. The resulting port numbers need to be available. However, display port numbers are otherwise arbitrary and do not need to be consecutive.Set a VNC password for each user by logging in as that user, executing the following command, and creating a password.
vncpasswd
You are asked whether you would like to set a view-only password as well. Doing so is optional and not necessary for this guide.
Create a VNC configuration file for each user. Log in as that user, create a
~/.vnc/config
using root permissions (sudo
), and add parameters for the VNC server to that file. The following are some example parameters. In this guide, thesession
andlocalhost
parameters are assumed, but the rest are optional.session=gnome geometry=1280x1024 localhost alwaysshared
Alternatively, you can configure global default parameters in the
/etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults
file. Parameters in that file are applied for any user unless otherwise overridden by a user’s~/.vnc/config
file.Note The TigerVNC documentation provides a comprehensive list and descriptions of possible configuration parameters for the VNC server.
Start the VNC Server
Start the TigerVNC Server for each user. The
1
in the following example is the display port number configured for the user.sudo systemctl start vncserver@:1.service
If desired, you can also set the VNC server to begin running at system startup.
sudo systemctl enable vncserver@:1.service
You can verify that the server is running with the following command:
sudo systemctl status vncserver@:1.service
Verify the port being used by the VNC server. The following command returns a list of active servers. TigerVNC servers should be listed with “Xvnc” as their program name.
sudo netstat -tlnp
Note The remainder of this guide assumes the VNC server is on port5901
. This number is derived from the VNC servers operating on port5900
plus the display port number that is used.
Secure Your VNC Connection
VNC connections are, by default, unencrypted. Therefore, you should use SSH tunneling to secure your connection. To do so, you need to tunnel traffic through an SSH connection to a local port. For convenience, this guide uses the same local port number as the VNC server (5901
).
The steps for SSH tunneling vary based on the operating system of the machine you are using to connect to the VNC server.
See Setting up an SSH Tunnel with Your Linode for Safe Browsing guide for more details and information on using SSH tunneling.
Linux and macOS
Create an SSH tunnel for the VNC server port. The SSH connection is made to the user on whom the VNC server was configured —
userA
in the examples above.ssh -f userA@192.0.2.0 -L 5901:localhost:5901 -N
The above command runs the SSH tunnel in the background. When you are finished with the VNC connection, you can stop the SSH tunneling with the following command, which kills all SSH connections.
pkill ssh
Windows
Open PuTTY, and enter “userA@192.0.2.0 ” as the Host name, with “userA” being the user on whom the VNC server was configured.
Open the Connections menu, and select Tunnels from under the SSH section.
Enter “5901” as the Source port and “userA@192.0.2.0 ” as the Destination. Beneath Destination, select Local and Auto.
Click Add, and the SSH tunnel begins running.
Connect to the VNC Server
With the VNC server running and secure, you can connect to it using a VNC client. The steps below vary depending on the operating system of the machine you are using to connect to the VNC server.
macOS and Windows
Of the VNC client options for macOS and Windows, RealVNC Viewer is perhaps the most popular, free, and easy to use.
Open RealVNC Viewer, and enter “localhost:5901” in the top bar.
You are notified that the connection is unencrypted. However, the steps in the Secure Your VNC Connection section above ensure that your connection is securely tunneled. Click Continue.
When prompted, enter the password configured for the VNC server user, following which the CentOS desktop opens.
Linux
Since this guide uses GNOME for the desktop environment, Vinagre , designed specifically for GNOME, is a strong VNC client option for Linux.
Open Vinagre.
Set Protocol to VNC, and enter “localhost:5901” as the Host. Click Connect.
When prompted, enter the password configured for the VNC server user. The CentOS desktop should then open.
More Information
You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.
This page was originally published on