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I need to find a remote desktop client on my Linux server than works over SSH. We use FreeNX before but it's got outdated and removed from many repos. Which client can you recommend?

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  • I've used winswitch, but it is dropped now. TightVNC seems still alive
    – ayvango
    Oct 26, 2015 at 12:11
  • Do you want to access your Linux server remotely, or do you want to work locally on your Linux server and access other machines remotely? If the latter, do you need RDP support or is RFB (i.e. VNC) support enough? Oct 26, 2015 at 15:49
  • It is terminal server with our software. Users will must connect and work on server.
    – NCNecros
    Oct 27, 2015 at 11:21
  • So you need a GUI and want to work on the remote desktop – or you just want to access the command line? Which OS are the clients on? Would a simple SSH tunnel do (opening graphical stuff on the local machine's X-Windows system)?
    – Izzy
    Oct 27, 2015 at 14:22
  • Have you tried nomachine? It was always my favorite for running full shell remotely. Oct 28, 2015 at 3:38

2 Answers 2

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I found that xrdp combined with ssh tunneling + compression is much faster than plain X forwarding in SSH.

In spite of the name it internally supports VNC.

For port forwarding over ssh do something like this:

ssh -v -C -L localport:127.0.0.1:remotexrdpport [email protected]

Then the client connects to localhost:localport.

Enable Compression yes and CompressionLevel 9 in .ssh/config or on commandline to achieve faster forwarding though.

In xrdp.ini in globals section you should do smth like:

[globals]
bitmap_cache=yes
bitmap_compression=yes
...

Such a combo works tolerably over relatively slow links. Not as well as NoMachine server, but the improvement over plain X forwarding is vast.

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How is the latency to your servers? If it is good, the most simple way is:

you@pc> ssh -X root@server xeyes
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  • The most of my clients have a 100mb\s. I'll try your advise. Thanks
    – NCNecros
    Oct 28, 2015 at 6:56
  • That was what I had in mind when asking for clarification on the question (+1 ;) I'd just recommend the -X parameter to be replaced by -Y (newer method), but the two are "interchangeable": if one causes trouble, try the other.
    – Izzy
    Oct 28, 2015 at 10:13
  • Will It use local libs, fonts, printers or remote?
    – NCNecros
    Oct 28, 2015 at 13:12
  • @NCNecros my guess: it uses local libs and fonts. The printers are from the remote host. AFAIK the application which runs on the remote machine does not know that the display gets exported. But it was just a guess. For my use case it works.
    – guettli
    Oct 30, 2015 at 11:36
  • Since Xwindow protocol shuffles a lot of streams that compress well, I'd add -C flag to ssh to enable transparent compression. Nov 2, 2015 at 16:46

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