Create Desktop Environment in Suse Linux on AWS

Having a Desktop environment on a Cloud Instance is helpful in many ways. You can troubleshoot application connectivity, take proper HAR files and so on. Even having a desktop is cool!

Here is how you can install GNOME on any SUSE Linux instances in any Cloud Environments. Remember, once you install GNOME (or KDE or any desktop environment as a matter of fact), you need to use VNC to connect to it.

The same steps can be used on any Cloud environments like Oracle Cloud (OCI), AWS, Azure, GCP and so on.

 

Requirements:

- SSH client that allows X11 forwarding

- TightVNC Server and Client

* Here are the steps I took to install GNOME desktop:

1. ssh into the instance with root username

2. type 'yast2' to get into YaST2 Control Center

3. Select "Software" on the left side bar, select "Online Update" on the right side bar, and then hint Enter key. This step is to update the repository of the system

4. Select "Software" on the left side bar, select "software Management" on the right side bar, and then hint Enter key.

5. In the "Search Phrase" textbox in the Filter Search session, type "gnome", and then hint Enter key

6. Install everything that listed on the right side bar, if the error page about "Package Dependencies"pops up, select the first option under "possible solutions", and then click "OK -- Try Again"

7. Select "Accept" on the bottom right of the page, hint Enter key. It will install all the packages you selected.

8. After installing the packages, click "F9" key twice to exit out YaST2 Control Center

Here are the steps to install and configure VNCServer:

1. Open TCP port 5901 in the security group that the instance belongs.

2. In the instance, type "zypper install vnc"

3. After installing VNCServer, type "vncpasswd" to set the access password

4. type "vncserver :1" to start a vnc session

5. sudo vim /root/.vnc/xstartup

6. comment out the "twm &" by typing # in front of the phrase, and then add "/usr/bin/gnome &" to the next line

7. save and exit out the xstartup file

8. type "vncserver -kill :1"

9. type "vncserver :1" to start a new session to load the modified xstartup file

10. In your local host, download and install tightvnc: http://www.tightvnc.com/download.php

11. Open "TightVNC Viewer"

12. For the Remote Host, type your DNS for the instance, and then add "::5901" at the end of the line

13. Click "Connect"

14. Type your password you set by vncpasswd

15. Now you can access to your instance via VNC connection

 

Hope this helps.

 

Set up Secure VNC server in RHEL /OEL / CentOS using SSH tunnel

Hello Guys,

Its been long time since I posted something here. I am trying to make time to write something and make this blog more active.

Lets see how to setup secure VNC server using SSH tunnel in RHEL/OEL/CentOS based Oracle Cloud OCI instances.

As you know, VNC protocol is unencrypted. Even though the log in process has some encryption, it is possible to sniff VNC traffic and collect sensitive infomration. You can fully secure a VNC session by tunnelling it via a SSH tunnel. Another advantage of tunnelling VNC via SSH is that you do not need to open VNC ports – TCP 590X on your Subnet’s Security List. The existing rule for SSH traffic will do fine.

I expect you have desktop environment installed on the instance. By default, VNC is configured to use Xterm as the terminal emulator and twm as the window manager for the X Window System.

RHEL 7/ OEL 7/ CentOS 7 OCI Instances

1.     Install VNC server.

$ sudo yum -y install tigervnc-server pixman pixman-devel libXfont

2.     Setup vnc password for your user.

We are setting up VNC for the default user ‘opc’, if you want to set it up for another user, just change the steps accordingly.

Log in to the user opc and set up VNC password

$ su – opc

$ vncpasswd

3.     Add a VNC Service configuration file.

The VNC daemon configuration file is available in systemd directory below:

$ ls /lib/systemd/system | grep -i vncserver

vncserver@.service

Copy and setup the VNC configuration file.

Backup the configuration file:

$ sudo cp /lib/systemd/system/vncserver@.service  /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@:1.service

     Update/create configuration file as follows:

$ sudo cat /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@\:1.service | egrep -v "^#"

[Unit]

Description=Remote desktop service (VNC)

After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]

Type=forking

ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i > /dev/null 2>&1 || :'

ExecStart=/usr/sbin/runuser -l opc -c "/usr/bin/vncserver %i -geometry 1280x1024 -localhost"

PIDFile=/home/opc/.vnc/%H%i.pid

ExecStop=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i > /dev/null 2>&1 || :'

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

Do remember to change the user name if you are setting VNC for a different user, here we are setting it up for user opc. Also, please note that the parameter “-localhost” makes VNC server to listen on loopback interface and accept connection from a tunnel only.

Make sure your VNC Xstartup file has the below contents:

$ cat /home/opc/.vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
#exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
/bin/gnome-session &

Set permission:
$ chmod 755 /home/opc/.vnc/xstartup

You must reload the systemd system initialization program after setting up the VNC server.

$ systemctl daemon-reload

4.     Start VNC server.

You can now start your VNC server using:

$ sudo systemctl start vncserver@:1 

RHEL 6/ OEL 6/ CentOS 6 OCI Instances

The VNC configuration is different in previous versions on RHEL based systems. You may follow the below steps to set up a secure VNC server.

1.     Install VNC server packages

$ sudo yum install -y vnc-server xorg-x11-fonts-Type1

2.     Update VNC server parameters in /etc/sysconfig/vncservers as follows:

$ cat /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

      VNCSERVERS="1:opc"

      VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 640x480 -localhost"

3.     Set VNC password

Log in to the user opc and set up VNC password

$ su – opc

$ vncpasswd

4.     Start VNC server

# sudo service vncserver start

Setup your clients to connect to the VNC server.

We have set up the VNC server to be available only via a secure tunnel. As such, we need to create an SSH tunnel from the client to the server before you can access the VNC session.

1.     Setup SSH Tunnel on your client machine

On Mac OS/Linux based clients, you may set up an SSH tunnel as follows:

$ ssh -i /path/to/key -L 5901:localhost:5901 -N -f opc@IP

      On Windows clients, you may set up SSH tunnelling using Putty.

Start putty and under Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels add:

Source port: 5901
Destination: localhost:5901

Then click “Add” to create port forwarding.

And connect to your server at its IP address and port 22 via PuTTY.

 

 Don't forget to click "Add" after updating the forwarded port and destination.


  You may access your instance using VNC using any VNC client using localhost:5901 now.

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Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.


Jay
 
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