VNC or Virtual Network Computing is a graphical desktop sharing tool that allows you to control a computer (server) remotely from another computer (client). A VNC server transmits all keyboard and mouse events from the client computer to the server computer. If you’re not yet comfortable with the CLI things like terminal etc, you can use VNC to make it easier to manage files, software, and system settings.
In this tutorial, I will show you step-by-step on how to set up a VNC server on CentOS 7. We will install a Linux XFCE desktop on the server, then install and configure VNC server using TigerVNC.
Prerequisites
- CentOS 7
- Root privileges
What we will do
- Update CentOS System and Create a Linux User.
- Install XFCE Desktop and TigerVNC.
- Initial VNC Configuration.
- Configure TigerVNC.
- Run TigerVNC as a Service.
- Connect to the VNC Server Through SSH Tunnel.
Step 1 – Update CentOS and add a Linux User
Before we start installing and configuring the VNC server, please update your CentOS using the yum command.
yum update -y
For this guide, the VNC desktop will be available for a non-root user. So, we need to create a new user and add it to the ‘wheel’ group for root access.
Add a new user using the command below. I’ll choose the username ‘edward’ in this example.
useradd -m -s /bin/bash edward
passwd edward
Type in the new user password.
Now add the user to ‘wheel’ group for sudo command access.
usermod -a -G wheel edward
After all this is done, login as ‘edward’ and then run the ‘sudo su’ command.
su – edward
sudo su
Type the ‘edward’ user password and make sure you get root privileges.
Step 2 – Install XFCE Desktop and TigerVNC
Linux has several desktop environments such as Gnome, Unity, KDE, LXDE, XFCE etc. For this tutorial, we will be using the XFCE desktop as our VNC desktop environment. XFCE is a lightweight deskto that is well suited for a server environment.
Before installing the XFCE desktop, install the latest EPEL repository.
yum -y install epel-release
Now install the XFCE desktop using the yum command below.
yum groupinstall “Xfce” -y
After the installation is complete, install the ‘tigervnc-server’ package.
yum -y install tigervnc-server tigervnc-server-minimal
Wait until the installation is complete.
The XFCE desktop with TigerVNC has been installed.
Step 3 – Initial VNC Configuration
In this step, we will generate the vnc configuration for the user ‘edward’.
Login as the ‘edward’ user.
su – edward
Now initiate the vnc configuration for ‘edward’ using the following command.
vncserver
You will be asked for the vnc server password – type in your password. For ‘view-only’ password, you can enable or disable it. The user who logs in to the server using a ‘view-only’ password will not be able to control the mouse and keyboard.
The first time we run the ‘vncserver’ command, it will automatically create a new configuration directory ‘.vnc’ and run the first vnc session.
ls -lah ~/.vnc/
vncserver -list
And you will get the first vnc session is running, as shown below.
Step 4 – Configure TigerVNC
In this step, we will configure the VNC server for using the XFCE desktop. We will edit the VNC configuration file ‘xstartup’ under the ‘.vnc’ directory.
Before editing the vnc configuration, kill the first vnc session using the command below.
vncserver -kill :1
Now backup the default configuration and create a new one using vim.
mv ~/.vnc/xstartup ~/.vnc/xstartup.bekup
vim ~/.vnc/xstartup
Paste the configuration below.
#!/bin/bash xrdb $HOME/.Xresources startxfce4 &
Save and exit.
Next, copy the default ‘Xresources’ configuration in the ‘edward’ user home directory.
cp /etc/X11/Xresources ~/.Xresources
And make the ‘xstartup’ script executable by changing its access permissions. Then run the ‘vncserver’ command again.
chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup
vncserver
The new vnc session is running with our default desktop XFCE.
Check it using the command below.
vncserver -list
Step 5 – Running TigerVNC as a Service
In this tutorial, we will run the VNC server as a service. So we need to create new service file for it.
Goto the ‘/etc/systemd/system’ directory and create a new service file ‘[email protected]’.
cd /etc/systemd/system
vim [email protected]
Paste the following configuration there.
[Unit] Description=Remote desktop service (VNC) After=syslog.target network.target [Service] Type=forking User=edward PIDFile=/home/edward/.vnc/%H:%i.pid ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i > /dev/null 2>&1 ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1280x800 :%i ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
Save the file and exit vim.
Now reload systemd and start the VNC server service.
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start [email protected]
If you don’t get any error, enable the service to launch at system boot and check the service status using systemctl.
systemctl enable [email protected]
systemctl status [email protected]
Following is the results in our case.
Or you can check using the vncserver command as shown below.
su – edward
vncserver -list
The VNC Server installation and configuration has been completed.
Step 6 – Connect to the VNC Server Through SSH Tunnel
In this last step, we will connect to our VNC server through a SSH tunnel.
Open a terminal window and type in the ssh command as shown below.
ssh -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901 -N -f -l edward 192.168.33.10
Change the IP address with your own server address, and type the ‘edward’ SSH login password.
The command will create a tunnel between your localhost and the VNC server. The port 5901 on localhost will be forwarded to the VNC server ‘192.168.33.10’ on port 5901.
Now open your ‘vnc viewer’ application, create a new connection, and type the VNC server address with the 127.0.0.1 localhost IP and port 5901 as shown below.
Connect to the VNC server and you will be asked for the VNC server password. Type your password and click ‘OK’.
Now you will get the XFCE desktop from your server.
Click the ‘use default config’ button for the first time, and you will get the XFCE desktop with default configuration.
Installation of the VNC server on CentOS 7 has been completed successfully.
