Minimum Install VNC Remote Desktop Server on Centos

On this tutorial we are going to install VNC server on a Centos 5.6 Linux VPS. The objective is to install minimum packages to save disk space and keep the package installation minimum.

To install VNC server and Gnome desktop, run this command:

yum install vnc-server gnome-desktop xorg-x11-xinit xterm gnome-applets gnome-session gnome-themes gnome-panel gdm firefox dbus-x11

Then create a normal user to run the VNC service and create password to login to VNC remote session:

adduser johndoe
passwd johndoe

su - johndoe

vncpasswd

ls .vnc/

You’ll see: passwd this file is storing the password for login to VNC session

exit

Next is editing VNC server configuration /etc/sysconfig/vncservers and add the new user to list of VNC server:

nano /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

Add the user to list of VNC server:

VNCSERVERS="1:johndoe"

Now let’s start the vncserver service to generate xstartup script where we’ll configure it to start Gnome desktop environment.

service vncserver start
service vncserver stop

su - johndoe

ls .vnc/

You’ll see: <hostname>:1.log passwd xstartup

We need to modify the xstartup script so Gnome session is called when we start the VNC server

nano .vnc/xstartup

modify:

#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
# unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
twm &

to:

#!/bin/sh

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
xterm -geometry 1024x768 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
gnome-session &

Save the modification, go back as root and let’s start the VNC server

exit
service vncserver start

Download Tight VNC client here: http://www.tightvnc.com/download.html

After you installed the Tight VNC client, run it and you’ll see this form:

VNC Connection

VNC Connection

On the VNC Server field, insert your VPS IP address followed with ‘:1’ and then click on Connect. You’ll be asked for a password, this is the password you created when you run vncpasswd command.

If you need VPS hosting with VNC remote desktop installed, please contact HalfDedi at www.halfdedi.com or email info@halfdedi.com, they have a great VPS service

17 thoughts on “Minimum Install VNC Remote Desktop Server on Centos

  1. fajrih

    sorry i cant……….

    when i write vncpasswd =====> -bash: vncpasswd: command not found

    and when i write ls .vnc/ ======> ls: .vnc/: No such file or directory

    can you help me

    Reply
    1. Talk Web ID Post author

      that means you haven’t install vnc server, please run the yum command on the very first step above.

      Reply
      1. magicguest

        Nope.
        That means he uses centos 6.
        So, the server is: tigervnc-server not: vnc-server

      1. Rey

        I have the same problem. When connecting to the VNC server it just shows a blank grey screen.
        My VPS’s virtualization is OpenVZ with 512MB RAM(1GB Burst).
        any help would be much appreciated.

        Thanks.

  2. wallpapers

    Hello, i tried to install it, but when i’m tried this comand

    ls .vnc/

    show :

    [root@149 ~]# su – johndoe
    [johndoe@149 ~]$ ls .vnc/
    ls: .vnc/: No such file or directory

    how can i resolve it ? thank’s

    Reply
  3. freehdwallpapers

    When i’lm runing service vncserver start i get :

    root@149 ~]# service vncserver start
    Starting VNC server: no displays configured [ OK ]

    Reply
    1. Talk Web ID Post author

      that means you didn’t follow the steps carefully:

      nano /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

      add:

      VNCSERVERS=”1:johndoe”

      Reply
  4. jawad

    I successfully completed all steps,but still “failed to connect to server 192.168.100.100:1”,m running centOS 6 as VNCSERVER and windows 7 as a client viewer.Help will be appreciatedd…

    Reply
  5. bob

    I have this set up, but do not have the nano editor, so I cannot edit files. I do not have vi either. How do I get an editor?

    Thanks

    Reply
  6. Mirko

    -bash-3.2# service vncserver stop
    Shutting down VNC server: 1:johndoe [FAILED]

    -bash-3.2# service vncserver start
    Starting VNC server: 1:johndoe A VNC server is already running as :1
    [FAILED]

    Why? 🙁

    Reply
    1. Talk Web ID Post author

      run this command to see if vnc server already running: ps aux | grep ‘vnc’

      make sure you execute the commands as root

      Reply

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