I have a server in the lab equipped with RH Linux and 4 Intel Xeon 3.0G CPUs, I would like to make full use of the computational resources. So usually I will employ the server to compile kernel for me, or just submit a large-scale tasks to it. However, every time I must use SSH to get the job done. Now as we have a MATLAB on the server and it is terrible to use MATLAB without any UI. (Maybe you can do that, but I will get mad.) So I decided to use remote desktop access to the server.

It is quite easy, I just follow the [I have a server in the lab equipped with RH Linux and 4 Intel Xeon 3.0G CPUs, I would like to make full use of the computational resources. So usually I will employ the server to compile kernel for me, or just submit a large-scale tasks to it. However, every time I must use SSH to get the job done. Now as we have a MATLAB on the server and it is terrible to use MATLAB without any UI. (Maybe you can do that, but I will get mad.) So I decided to use remote desktop access to the server.

It is quite easy, I just follow the](http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/desktop-guide/ch-ddg-remote-desktop.html) stated on the RH website. However, this is a little

bit confusing as it said that

These tools only allow you to connect to a user’s existing session. If the user is not logged in, the connection will fail.. </p> But how can you login without touch the machine. (The machine is locked in a black room and always buzzing.) In fact you can try to ssh and start a session manually like:

vncserver -depth 16 -geometry 1024×768

to start a new vncserver, then RH will automatically configure the others for you and return you a desktop address like XXX.cse.wustl.edu:2

Thus you can use vncviewer on the client side, like

vncviewer XX.cse.wustl.edu:2 &

BTW, in Ubuntu, you can use this command to apt-get the vncviewer

sudo apt-get install xvncviewer

I will try to install VNCViewer on Mac too :)

On Mac, you can simply download VNCViewer from here. Now the only problem is: How secure the communication is? Hey, I want to use a SSH-like tunnel. Of course Linux/UNIX can do that. Just bind your local port to the remote port using the commands like:

ssh -L 1116:XXX.cse.wustl.edu:5902 youxu@XXX.cse.wustl.edu

This command will bind your local port 1116 to the remote port 5902, which is the the port for your VNCserver. (Just add 5900 to the two digital number that VNCSever reported to you during booting/starting).

Congratulations, now you have a secure X client. Come on and make the full use of your server:)