Setting Up VNC on Ubuntu 20.04

Whether you're a Windows or Linux user, Apache Guacamole is here to help. But before we dive into the details of this tool, let's take a step back and understand what it's all about. By the end of this guide, we'll have set up a working Apache Guacamole Server that can be used to access all your servers from one place.

In order to meet this need, this guide will walk you through the process of setting up such a platform. So, let's get started!

First, we need to install something called xscreensaver. This is because the default screen saver on Ubuntu 20.04 isn't very secure, so we'll need to use a more secure alternative.

To set up your VNC server, you'll need to change your settings under privacy > screen lock to the following:

OH – A GOTCHA! – don't lock your screen as you won't be able to VNC back in. It's important to check that you can log in from the login screen.

One last test before calling it done is to reboot the system once again. You can check the status of this service, like others, using systemctl status rvice. While we're there, let's start the service and test it with systemctl start rvice.

Super – now we need to tell the systemd system that there's a change and to reload systemctl daemon-reload, followed by enabling the new service systemctl enable rvice. We also want the service to be started before the multi-user target is reached.

The ExecStart and Stop commands should be self-explanatory, with x11vnc creating a child process from the -forever clause. We'll start this service after other services have been started or target points have been reached.

To do this, we'll use the following command:

sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/rvice.service

ExecStart=/usr/bin/x11vnc -forever -display :0 -auth guess -password password (this is insecure but it's fine for testing on a LAN I guess.)

You can skip this step if you like, but I would recommend running x11vnc from a terminal and trying to connect remotely.

So why would you want to do this? You might want to use VNC for remote access via a GUI, screen sharing, or to a headless server or virtual machine.

Installing x11vnc from the gnome-software center doesn't ensure that it starts on boot without a graphical session being logged in each time the machine restarts. Hence, we need a slightly longer process.

First, we need to change the display manager over to lightdm (away from gnome display manager 3). This will allow us to start x11vnc automatically when the machine boots up.

That's it! With these steps complete, you should now have a working VNC server set up on your Ubuntu 20.04 system.

Vnc on ubuntu 20.04