In this article, we look at ways to
start a remote session from one Ubuntu machine on another. First to
clarify, starting a remote session is not the same as Desktop sharing
with tools like VNC.
What I really wanted was to let the
remote machine operate using display settings of my client machine.
Reason was, on my primary machines at my home, I have a dual display
with 23 and 24 inch monitors, one of which is rotated by 90 degrees.
Trying to access this over VNC meant that my local view consisted of
this extended desktop made up of display real estate that was
impossible to manipulate over my client machine that was a laptop.
This requires two steps
- Step 1: Connect to the machine using secure shell
- Step 2: Launch a remote gnome session
Here are the steps.
Step 1: Connect to the machine using a secure shell
The first step was to open a terminal
windows and start a sescure shell session.
$ ssh -X user@host_machine
For example, in my case that works out
to the following:
$ ssh -X arthgallo@192.168.0.XX
It may show a prompt similar to
following (I have blanked out my ECDSA key on purpose).
Say yes to continue.
You will have to enter your password to
continue.
This will start the remote X session.
Step 2: Launch a remote gnome session
Next launch a gnome session using the
following command.
$gnome-session –session=gnome-classic
The new gnome session is launched as
part of the primary desktop, and we can see the remote machine's
desktop on our machine.
That's it, we are done.
