I have set up a media server that uses Fedora 35 Gnome desktop. I am looking to connect to this machine, remotely, via a Windows computer, only on my home network (preferably VNC). I want to connect and see the desktop and be able to interact and run the programs. I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for; most connections only allow the connection via terminal/command line. I used to have this media server set up on a Rasberry Pi and I used Real VNC to manage my connection, but that program does not seem to have a working version on Fedora.
I did try Xming, but that only allows access to a program and not the entire desktop. Is there something available that will allow me to make this connection? Preferably via the computer name rather than the IP, since the IP can change upon restart - I’ve not had great luck with static IPs.
For Home LAN only setup, you can use gnome’s builtin screen sharing.
Then using any VNC client to connect to it.
In order to connect using hostname without admin control of the router, I will assign a static IP address to Fedora, then in the client machines, I will add the hostname ip mapping locally to hosts files.
(For windows, it is usually at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts )
@sampsonf@computersavvy Thank you for the replies. I turned on screen sharing and remote login via the Gnome settings, however I can’t seem to get a GUI VNC connection established from my Windows 10 machine. I am able to login via command prompt, but I’ve tried a few different viewers and none will connect. It seems to be that Fedora is needing an SSH connection and none of the VNC viewers I have found support an SSH connection.
Is there a way to have Fedora not require an SSH connection since I’m only wanting to connect locally? Or does anyone know of a VNC viewer that allows SSH connections?
If you want to remote Linux system from Windows, may be you want to give xrdp a try. You can find lot of tutorial how to set xrdp on Fedora Linux and also how to remote it from Windows.
Or if still want to use vnc, may this article will help since Remmina are work great.
You may need to verify that the vnc connection on the linux machine is actually running and the port open. The vnc connection enabled by turning on vnc and sharing the screen is 5900 which can be checked by running nmap ip-address-of-linux-machine
If it shows port 5900 as open then you should be able to connect to that ip with any vnc client from the windows machine. This for my config on the linux workstation.
Note that if you have it set so “New connections must ask for access” that means you will have to acknowledge and permit each and every connection from the linux side.
@oprizal & hankuoffroad Thank you for the lines. It doesn’t appear that Remmina works on Windows. I couldn’t find where it does or an installer for it.
@computersavvy Thanks for the info. I did need to make some changes here, but still no dice.
After several hours, and multiple programs, I was able to finally get a connection established. I used software called NoMachine that runs on both machines and makes a connection between them. It seems that when it came to software, my problem was either it wasn’t supported by both Windows and Fedora, or it didn’t allow for SSH.
Just want to clarify, from article I shared above actually to be able to use Remmina, we need to use WSL, Linux inside windows and yes we can’t install Remmina directly to Windows.
