Remote Desktop into ODROID - Sheng-Cheng/OpenMACE GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents

• ODROID Steps
• Windows Steps
• Restart over SSH

On ODROID (remote machine)

On the ODROID, we need to install a VNC server manager and setup the permissions. For this, we will use vino and dconf-tools. To install them, connect the ODROID to a monitor and boot it up. Once booted, log in, open a terminal and run:

$ sudo apt-get install vino dconf-tools

Once installed, launch the vino preferences editor by running vino-preferences. This will launch the preferences editor window. In the Sharing section, make sure both Allow other users to view your desktop and Allow other users to control your desktop are checked. In the Security section, un-check every option. In the Show Notification Area Icon section, make sure Only when someone is connected is selected. Close the window

Next, run dconf-editor in the terminal to launch the configuration editor. Navigate to org-->gnome-->desktop-->remote-access. Un-check require-encryption and delete the default vnc-password field. Close the window.

To start the VNC server, simply run /usr/lib/vino/vino-server in a terminal window. At this point, the server should be running and you can disconnect your ODROID from the monitor. If at any point the VNC server goes down, you can restart it from the remote Windows machine using PuTTY or other SSH manager (see the Restart over SSH section).

On Windows (viewing machine)

To view the remote desktop running a VNC Server, download VNC Viewer. Once downloaded, start the VNC Viewer application and simply search for the IP Address of the remote machine. Hit Enter and a separate window should pop up trying to connect to the remote desktop. Assuming it is successful, a window will appear giving you access to the ODROID's desktop.

Restart VNC server over SSH

If the VNC server ever stops on the ODROID, you can restart the vino server over SSH. Using any SSH client (PuTTY is common), start an SSH session to the IP address of the ODROID. The default settings should be fine. When the SSH session opens, you will be prompted for the user name you wish to log in as and then the user's password. After entering those, you will have access to a terminal. Here, we will restart the vino VNC server by running the following commands:

$ export DISPLAY=:0.0
$ /usr/lib/vino/vino-server

You should see the server start and should be able to connect as normal using the VNC Viewer from your Windows machine. Note that if you close the SSH session or stop its vino server, your connection to the remote desktop will be lost and you will need to restart the vino server again.