Linux Resources

De Transport

Connecting to Polytechnique desktops

  • the first way to connect is though ssh, which, to put it simply, gives you the same access as to a terminal locally (see below for terminal resources)
  • one can use a proprietary tool like Teamviewer for remote graphical access, but the free version has quirks and sometimes won't work anymore. In that case, one can use a 100% free solution relying on VNC (included on MacOS).
    • make sure a VNC server (we'll use x11vnc since it is lightweight and full featured) is installed on the target computer
    • create a tunnel to the computer and start by typing
      ssh -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 username@ipaddress -p port 'x11vnc -localhost -display :0'
      where the username, ipaddress and port are replaced by the appropriate values (removing the last part in single quotes creates the tunnel, and one has to start x11vnc after connection)
    • connect to the computer using a VNC client, eg vinagre on Linux or realVNC (the integrated client in MacOS insists on having a password, but we are not using one here): the address is simply 'localhost' since the tunnel does as if the remote computer is local on the specific VNC port (5900)

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