A Simple Tutorial for Installing VNC Server on Ubuntu 20.04

1. Make sure you have the GNOME desktop installed

The desktop version is installed by default, and the server version needs to be installed manually and started

# apt install ubuntu-gnome-desktop
 
# systemctl set-default multi-user.target
 
$ startx

2. Install VNC

Do not install tigervncserver

To install this standalone, there will be a little difference (the following -localhost no is not recognized)

sudo apt-get install tigervnc-standalone-server

3. Configure VNC Server

If you want to log in with a certain user such as demo, use su to switch to this user.

If you want to log in as root, you can directly use the root account to operate.

# su - demo
demo@demoserver:~$ vncpasswd
Password:
Verify:
Would you like to enter a view-only password (y/n)? n
A view-only password is not used

 The above command will generate a passwd file in the ~/.vnc/ directory. Inside is the encrypted password.

Then you need to cd to the ~/.vnc directory and create a new xstartup  file

touch xstartup 

Enter the following:

#!/bin/sh
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
gnome-session &

The function is to run these commands when the vncserver starts to start the desktop program.

4. Start VNC Server

vncserver :1 -geometry 1920x1080 -localhost no

Note: If an error message similar to the following appears: 

 

 You need to manually create this file, and then start the VNC Server again

view all vnc sessions 

vncserver -list

To close a session you can use the following command

vncserver -kill :1

5. Remote connection

You can use vncviewer

Remote address input ip:port

Such as: 192.168.1.11:5901

For the specific port number, you can check the RFB PROT in the result returned by vncserver -list