Remote display connections

Remote Desktop

Windows users will be familiar with remote desktop, which uses the RDP protocol. There are a number of linux clients that provide connectivity using RDP. Before you continue, you may want to ensure the rdesktop USE flag is set in your /etc/make.conf, or per-package as below.

The rdesktop package provides command-line functionality for RDP connections. There is a gtk based frontend for the redesktop package called grdesktop, which is what we will focus on here.

$ sudo emerge -av grdesktop

Once the emerge has completed, you can start the gui and create an RDP connection using the Network -> Remotedesktop Client item in your menu.

NX Client

NX is a free, open-source remote display suite founded by the good folks at http://www.nomachine.org . Client ports exist for all major operating systems, but the server portion is currently for Linux only. NX functions in basically the same way RDP does, except in the fact that it uses ssh for its tunneling rather than a distinct protocol using the default RDP port, 3389.

$ sudo emerge -av nxclient

As with the rdesktop client, you can access the nx client via the same area of your menu.

Note: if you are connecting to an xfce desktop instance, you'll need to select "Unix", "Custom" and then click the "Settings" button under the "Desktop" area of the "General" tab. Choose "Run the following command" and enter

startxfce4

You will also want to choose "New Virtual Desktop" under "Options".

NX Server

To set up your system as an NX server so you can access you desktop using a GUI you'll need to emerge nxserver.

$ sudo emerge -av nxserver-freenx

After the emerge has completed, you'll need to modify one of the configuration files if you've changed your ssh port from the default.

$ sudo nano -w /etc/nxserver/node.conf

Change the appropriate line to

SSHD_PORT=<yourport>

To initialize the nxserver with default security, run the config tool.

$ sudo nxsetup --install --setup-nomachine-key

Once the configuration is complete, start the service and add it to startup.

$ sudo rc-update add nxserver default
$ sudo /etc/init.d/nxserver start

Test your connection to the server using the nxclient on another machine.