Remote desktop access

Sometimes it is useful to manage the CPU and GPU instances from a visual desktop interface.

Follow these steps to set up a remote desktop environment with VNC server using TigerVNC on Linux systems like Ubuntu 24.04. This setup allows you to remotely access a lightweight graphical desktop on DataCrunch virtual machine instances.

Connect to your instance using SSH

ssh user@INSTANCE_IP_ADDRESS

Update The System

Follow the instructions on Securing Your Instance if you have not done that before

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install XFCE Desktop Environment

sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies

Install TigerVNC Server

sudo apt install tigervnc-standalone-server tigervnc-common

Set Up VNC Password and Initial Configuration

Start the VNC server to set your access password and create initial configuration files:

vncserver

You will be prompted to set a password for VNC access.

Configure VNC to Use XFCE

Stop the VNC server to edit the startup configuration:

vncserver -kill :1

Edit (or create) the ~/.vnc/xstartup file:

vi ~/.vnc/xstartup

Replace its contents with:

#!/bin/sh
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
startxfce4 &

Make the script executable:

chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup

Start the VNC server again (for example, on display :1):

vncserver :1

Now your instance has and VNC server running and is ready for the VNC connection. Next commands are run on the machine that you want to use for viewing and controlling the desktop.

Create an SSH tunnel to secure the VNC connetion

Run this command on the machine that you will use to connect to your instance. If you want to keep the SSH tunnel connection in the background, you can use screen or tmux commands.

ssh -L 5901:localhost:5901 username@REMOTE_IP

Connect Using a VNC Client

Use any VNC viewer (e.g., TigerVNC Viewer, RealVNC, or Remmina) and connect to localhost:5901.

Tips

• You can change the vnc ports and make multiple connections, they will get assigned different ports 5901, 5902 etc..

• You can also use other compatible Linux desktop environments like Ubuntu Desktop (Gnome), KDE Plasma on the instances. XFCE Desktop is recommended for most users since it is lightweight and simple to use without much configuration and works with default DataCrunch OS images.