Dave Lachapelle

Further to my previous postings about Ubuntu and VNC, which seems to have been the most popular page on my blog for a while, I happened across this post from Sam Lesher this morning on how to enable Ubuntu’s built-in remote desktop from the command line. The built-in remote desktop uses VNC, and so kind of eliminates the need for any form of VNC Server setup.

Sam Lesher » Ubuntu 7.04 – Enable/Disable Remote Desktop from the Command Line

To enable remote desktop from the command line, issue this command:

$ gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled true

To disable remote desktop from the command line, issue this command:

$ gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled false

Unfortunately, this only works if you have previously configured remote desktop with a password, which would in theory require physical access to the machine.  That being said though, I want to set it up remotely, and so to add to Sam’s guide, I’d like to add that you can X-Forward a gnome session through SSH which will allow you to change this option.  I’m working on a how-to which I will post shortly.