How to Install Centos Remote Desktop

In this small tutorial we are going to learn how to install an CenOS remote desktop (rdp)  on a linux vps with centos operating system installed. Linux remote desktop has a graphical interface like windows and loads and works faster than a windows rdp. And in this way you can get an Centos Remote Desktop (rdp) for even quarter of the price that you will be paying for a windows rdp.The only consideration is that your vps should have a minimum guaranteed ram of 512 mb and burstable ram of more than 700 mb. Now you can follow this step by step tutorial to install your remote desktop on your Centos vps.

Step 1:

Download an install putty . This is a utility which you will use to send remote commands to your vps for installing Centos Remote Desktop. You can download putty from here. When you will run putty , it will open a window like this.Where you enter the ip address of your vps which your host gave you and click on open.

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/2118/20101109165518.jpg

Step 2:

In the next window login as root and supply your root password. This will log you as root into your vps.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/1310/20101107215820.jpg

Step 3:

The next steps assume that your centos comes with YUM already installed. You may check if it is installed or not by issuing the following command in ur putty window.

yum

If the output is something like this window , then it is ok otherwise contact your hosting provider to isntall yum for you. They can do it in two seconds and they should have included it in the first place.

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/715/20101109170707.gif

Step 3:

Now we are using the command to install genome desktop enviroment which will install graphical environment on your vps . Issue the following command in the putty window.

yum groupinstall 'GNOME Desktop Environment' 'X Window System'

This will take quite some time ( around 10-15 ) minutes , depending upon the speed of your vps. Please wait for it to finish. After the command executes successfully , issue the following command in our quest to install Centos Remote Desktop (RDP).

yum update

This will update your system.

Step 4:

Now we will install NX/FreeNX server in vps which will act as our server when in the next steps we connect to this vps as Cenotos Remote Desktop. More information about NX server and client can be found here. In your putty window , issue the following command.

yum install nx freenx

When this command executes successfully , you again issue the yum update command.

yum update

Now restart your server and issue the following command.

shutdown -r now

This will restart your server in about two minutes time. You will have to close the putty window and again start putty and connect to your server as in Step 2 above. We will be needing something from this putty window one final time in a while.

Step 5:

For the next step to install Centos Remote Desktop go  here and download NX client for windows and install it.http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/3461/20101109175030.jpg

Now run nx client from programs and a window like this will open.Enter in the Host box your IP address of vps , Select Gnome as desktop and display area as Available Area and move to next step without pressing any other button.

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4710/20101109175620.jpg

Step 6:

Go to your putty window and issue the following command.

cat /var/lib/nxserver/home/.ssh/client.id_dsa.key

Now copy the resulting dsa key with Control + C . The area to be copied is shown as grey area in the following picture.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9415/20101109180644.jpg

Now go to the nomachine client window that we have left opened in Step 5 and click on key and paste the copied text from putty window in place of the already existing default key there.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4647/20101109181442.jpg

Click Save and Then Click OK. It will open a window like this.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1650/20101109181624.jpg

Enter your user name as root and your root password and click login. And if you followed me correctly , you will soon see a screen like this.

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9505/20101109182046.jpg

And then finally your centos remote desktop screen like this:

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/2619/20101109182126.jpg

Hope you liked the tutorial to install Centos Remote Desktop and it was of some use for you. Do contact me in case of any queries.

7 Responses on this post

  1. Last Step for cent os 6 32 or 64 bit
    screen will keep closing so your will need some fonts here is the code:

    yum groupinstall "Desktop" "Desktop Platform" "X Window System" "Fonts

  2. The error details is as follows:

    NX> 203 NXSSH running with pid: 22536
    NX> 285 Enabling check on switch command
    NX> 285 Enabling skip of SSH config files
    NX> 285 Setting the preferred NX options
    NX> 200 Connected to address: 192.168.1.75 on port: 22
    NX> 202 Authenticating user: nx
    NX> 208 Using auth method: publickey
    HELLO NXSERVER – Version 3.2.0-74-SVN OS (GPL, using backend: not detected)
    NX> 105 hello NXCLIENT – Version 3.2.0
    NX> 134 Accepted protocol: 3.2.0
    NX> 105 SET SHELL_MODE SHELL
    NX> 105 SET AUTH_MODE PASSWORD
    NX> 105 login
    NX> 101 User: root
    NX> 102 Password:
    NX> 103 Welcome to: Maximus user: root
    NX> 105 listsession –user=”root” –status=”suspended,running” –geometry=”1360x768x32+render” –type=”unix-gnome”
    NX> 127 Sessions list of user ‘root’ for reconnect:

    Display Type Session ID Services Dept Screensize Status Session Name Username
    ——- —————- ——————————– ——– —- ————– ————- ———————————————————— ——————————–

    NX> 148 Server capacity: not reached for user: root
    NX> 105 startsession –link=”lan” –backingstore=”1″ –encryption=”1″ –cache=”16M” –images=”64M” –shmem=”1″ –shpix=”1″ –strict=”0″ –composite=”1″ –media=”0″ –session=”MHS” –type=”unix-gnome” –geometry=”1354×706″ –client=”winnt” –keyboard=”pc102/en_US” –screeninfo=”1354x706x32+render”

    NX> 1000 NXNODE – Version 3.2.0-74-SVN OS (GPL, using backend: not detected)
    NX> 700 Session id: Maximus-1000-C4B319774BAB4C4AE28BF7DB63EF82CF
    NX> 705 Session display: 1000
    NX> 703 Session type: unix-gnome
    NX> 701 Proxy cookie: 15ffc7f36e5c4e0779cd3317e0a28869
    NX> 702 Proxy IP: 127.0.0.1
    NX> 706 Agent cookie: 15ffc7f36e5c4e0779cd3317e0a28869
    NX> 704 Session cache: unix-gnome
    NX> 707 SSL tunneling: 1
    NX> 105 /usr/bin/nxserver: line 1531: 5925 Terminated sleep $AGENT_STARTUP_TIMEOUT
    NX> 596 Session startup failed.
    NX> 1004 Error: NX Agent exited with exit status 1. To troubleshoot set SESSION_LOG_CLEAN=0 in node.conf and investigate “/root/.nx/F-C-Maximus-1000-C4B319774BAB4C4AE28BF7DB63EF82CF/session”. You might also want to try: ssh -X myserver; /usr/bin/nxnode –agent to test the basic functionality. Session log follows:
    NX> 1006 Session status: closed
    Can’t open /var/lib/nxserver/db/running/sessionId{C4B319774BAB4C4AE28BF7DB63EF82CF}: No such file or directory.
    mv: cannot stat `/var/lib/nxserver/db/running/sessionId{C4B319774BAB4C4AE28BF7DB63EF82CF}’: No such file or directory
    NX> 1001 Bye.
    /usr/bin/nxserver: line 562: kill: (5656) – No such process
    NX> 280 Exiting on signal: 15

    1. Hi,

      No, as installing RDP installs many supporting dependencies and environment that can’t be removed without a reinstall.

      Regards
      Shine Servers

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