Fedora provides remote desktop access. This provides two extremely useful features. Firstly it enables you, or another person to view and interact with your desktop environment from another computer system either on the same network or over the internet. This is useful if you need to work on your computer when you are away from your desk such as while travelling or even sitting in a Wi-Fi enabled coffee shop. It is also useful in situations where a co-worker or IT support technician needs access to your desktop to resolve a problem.

Secondly, in addition to providing access to your primary desktop (the one you see when you switch on your monitor every morning) it enables you to create multiple desktops and connect to them remotely.

The Fedora remote desktop functionality is based on technology called Virtual Network Computing (VNC) and in this chapter we will cover the key aspects of configuring and using remote desktops with Fedora Linux. It is important to note that there are both secure and insecure ways to access a remote desktop and both approaches will be covered.

Installing Remote Desktop Support:

It is possible that remote desktop support was not installed by default. If it has been installed, a Remote Desktop option will be available in the desktop System->Preferences menu. Another useful way to check whether this package is installed is to run the following command from a terminal window (Applications->System Tools->Terminal):

rpm -q vino

If the rpm command reports package vino is not installed then the next step is to perform the installation. This can be performed either using the Add/Remove Software tool, launched by selecting System->Administration->Add/Remove Software or from the command prompt in a terminal window. Within the Add/Remove Software tool, search for vino, select checkbox next to item in the results list and click on Apply to install the package. To install from a terminal window, enter the following:

su - yum install vino

Once the installation is complete, the Remote Desktop option will now appear in the System->Preferences menu.

Activating Remote Desktop Access:

The next step in setting up remote desktop access is to activate it and define some basic security settings. These settings are configured in the Remote Desktop Preferences dialog. To access this dialog, open the desktop System menu, select Preferences followed by Remote Desktop. When selected the following window will appear:

In this dialog the following configuration options are available:

• Allow others to view your desktop - Activates remote desktop access for viewing purposes.
• Allow other users to control your desktop - Allows users accessing your remote desktop to control the desktop. In other words the remote user can do anything to your desktop that they want using their mouse and keyboard as if they were sitting physically at the local system.
• You must confirm each access to this machine - When selected, this option cause a dialog to appear warning you of an attempt by a remote user to connect and prompting you to confirm or deny the connection. If you are likely to want to log in remotely you will need to turn this off since you will not be at the local system to accept your own connection.
• Require the user to enter this password - Specifies a password which must be entered by the remote user to access your desktop. It is strongly advised that you select this option and specify a password.
• Configure network automatically to accept connections - Instructs the system to automatically accept remote desktop connections. This is the setting that you will want to activate before leaving your desk to travel knowing you will need remote access while you are away.
• Always display icon - Causes the remote desktop icon to appear in the Notification area of the top status bar when remote desktop access is enabled (even when a remote user is not connected).
• Only display an icon when there someone is connected - Displays an icon on the Notification area of the top status bar when a user is remotely connected to the desktop.
• Never display an icon - The Notification icon is never displayed regardless of the current state of the remote desktop system.

Finally this screen specifies the command to run on the remote system to access the desktop. Once you have configured Remote Desktop access you are ready to try connecting.