Configuring VNC Server and SSH Remote Access on Linux

This article describes how to install a VNC server on a Linux virtual machine to enable remote graphical control from another computer.

It first shows how to view the IP address on different operating systems: ipconfig on Windows, ifconfig on Linux and macOS.

To assign a fixed IP, the VM is set to bridge mode so it shares the same LAN as the host, obtaining an address like 192.168.1.xxx .

It warns not to use the root account for remote connections to avoid screen black‑out issues.

dnf install tigervnc-server tigervnc-server-module -y

## Add user
useradd vncserver
passwd vncserver

## Set VNC password for the remote user
su - vncserver
$ vncpasswd
Password:
Verify:
Would you like to enter a view‑only password (y/n)? n
A view‑only password is not used

# Create systemd service file /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]
[Unit]
Description=Remote Desktop VNC Service
After=syslog.target network.target
[Service]
Type=forking
WorkingDirectory=/home/vncserver
User=vncserver
Group=vncserver
ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i > /dev/null 2>&1 || :'
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver -autokill %i
ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill %i
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

By default, the VNC server listens on TCP port 5900+n , where n is the display number (e.g., display 1 uses port 5901 ).

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start vncserver@:1.service
systemctl enable vncserver@:1.service
systemctl status vncserver@:1.service

You can verify the listening port with netstat -anlpt | grep 5901 . The guide also provides commands to stop and disable the firewall and SELinux:

# Disable firewall
systemctl stop firewalld
systemctl disable firewalld

# Temporarily disable SELinux
setenforce 0
# Permanently disable SELinux
vim /etc/sysconfig/selinux
SELINUX=disabled

For the VNC client, it recommends downloading RealVNC Viewer from the provided URL.

The article then covers SSH remote access: checking the sshd service status, installing an SSH client on Windows (e.g., Xshell), and connecting with ssh user@host or ssh [email protected] .