Configure VNC server

VNC server on RHEL5

VNC or Virtual Network Computing is a graphical desktop sharing program that uses RFB (Remote framebuffer) protocol to take control of another remote machine. It’s a Client-Server communication Protocol. VNC Server is the program on the machine that shares it desktop. Server allows the client to take control of it. VNC Client or VNC viewer is the program that watches, control and interacts with the server. Multiple clients can access to the VNC server at the same time by using VNC viewer.

VNC was originally developed by the Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

VNC is platform-Independent software that means you can run it on windows, Linux or Macintosh system. In this tutorial I am going to showing you that how you can configure & use VNC server with VNC viewer on Linux System.

Pre-requisites of VNC Server:

• A Linux Server with IP address 210.207.201.1 & hostname Vncserver.
• One or more Linux Client with IP address 210.207.201.x & hostname clientx
• Update /etc/hosts file on both Linux system or use DNS system for name resolution.
• Firewall should be off on the server

 Note: where x is 1,2,.....

Necessary configuration for Server Machine

IP Configuration: Change your server & client machine IP address as like below.

[root@localhost ~]# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

#Broadcom Corporation Net link BCM57875 Gigabyte Ethernet PCI Express

DEVICE=eth0

BOOTPROTO=static

HWADDR=00:0C:29: EB: B2: CA

ONBOOT=yes

TYPE=Ethernet

PEERDNS=no

USERCTL=no

IPV6INIT=no

IPADDR=210.207.201.1

NETMASK=255.255.255.0

NETWORK=210.207.201.0

BROADCAST=210.207.201.255

Changing Host name: Change your server & client machine name as like below.

[root@localhost ~]# vi /etc/sysconfig/network

NETWORKING=yes

NETWORKING_IPV6=no

HOSTNAME=Vncserver

Restart or Reload the NIC card: After changing the NIC card and hosting name you have to restart the network of router machine by following this command.

[root@localhost ~]# service iptables stop

[root@localhost ~]# chkconfig iptables off

[root@localhost ~]# service network restart

 Checking and Installing Necessary packages for Server and Client Machine

On Server machine: check the following packages is instead or not by rpm command.

[root@Vncserver ~]#  rpm –qa vnc*

Vnc-server-4.1.2-9.el5

If installed then it will show the above package, but if not installed then you should install it by yum install command.

[root@Vncserver ~]# yum Install vnc* -y

Note: By default the package will be installed on your machine but if not installed then you should installed it via yum.

On Client machine: On client machine you need VNC viewer to connecting with Server, but this will not install by default on your machine, so you need to install it first. To check that it is already been installed or not then follow the instruction to verify the program.

Click on Application Menu → Accessories →VNC Viewer

If the program is not presented on the location then install it via yum command.

[root@client01 ~]# yum Install vnc* -y

Now check it again from the above instruction.