Remote Desktop (VNC) with SSH Tunnel
Starting a VNC session with an SSH tunnel
On Mac, you will need the TurboVNC Viewer client (https://sourceforge.net/projects/turbovnc/)
On Windows, you will need the TurboVNC Viewer client (https://sourceforge.net/projects/turbovnc/) and PuTTY (https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html)
Quick overview using server nc4:
1. ssh as usual into username@nc4.ucsd.edu
2. Set up your preferred virtual desktop number (e.g., call vncserver :22)
3. tunnel in using the port number 5900 + your virtual desktop number, e.g., ssh -L 5922:localhost:5922 username@nc4.ucsd.edu
4. connect to localhost:desktopNumber (e.g., localhost:22) in the GUI
Detailed Instructions:
Starting the VNC server
Connect to the remote server using SSH and then start your VNC server with a specific session ID, for example using ID# 15:
vncserver :15
The resolution of the VNC desktop could also be specified in the 'vncserver' command. For example:
vncserver -geometry 1600x1200 :15
On the first time that you run the vncserver command, you will be prompted to enter a VNC password to secure your VNC session. This password can be set to any strong password as desired.
The output of the vncserver command is important: it tells you where to point your client to access your desktop in format remoteServer:displayNumber
Desktop 'TurboVNC: remoteServer:15 (sscf-silas)' started on display remoteServer:15
Creating an SSH tunnel
The VNC <port> is 5900 + the virtual display number. In my example, 5900 + 15 = 5915.
On Mac, use Terminal to create the SSH tunnel by following this format:
ssh -L <port>:localhost:<port> <username>@<server name>.ucsd.edu
Using the above example, the command would be:
ssh -L 5915:localhost:5915 sscf-silas@remoteServer.ucsd.edu
On Windows, open PuTTY. For hostname, enter: remoteServer.ucsd.edu
Navigate to Connection->SSH->Tunnels
Source port: <port>
Destination: localhost:<port>
Using the above example, the source port would be 5915 and the destination would be localhost:5915
Connecting to VNC desktop session
Open the TurboVNC Viewer client, and connect to localhost:<displayNumber>. The TurboVNC viewer client will prompt you for your VNC password.
To end your VNC session, you can kill the desktop by using this command with the session ID:
vncserver -kill :15