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My preferred remote desktop tool is TeamViewer. Almost no VPS actually supports this, because TeamViewer needs a virtual graphics card (that's what I'm calling

My preferred remote desktop tool is TeamViewer. Almost no VPS actually supports this, because TeamViewer needs a virtual graphics card (that's what I'm calling it, but I actually don't know what to call it). Linode used to provide one at 1024x768, but I think they no longer do so. Vultr however does support one, at 1280x1024. Anybody else have this preference for TeamViewer?

Youden 7y ago
Apparently TeamViewer supports headless Linux servers: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/remote-access-headless-linux/ https://www.teamviewer.com/en/remote-access-headless-linux/ I'm guessing what you're getting at here though is that you want to manage the server through a desktop interface, complete with windows and menus and the like. Most people don't do that on Linux servers because most of the things you need to interact with to administrate one are only accessible through a command line interface. That said, if you really want to manage a Linux server graphically, you might be able to make it work with something like Xvfb.
- cerberusss 7y ago
  Yeah, I want a desktop. I manage my server via ssh of course, any extra graphical cruft is a liability there. > Xvfb I might, but I've tried a zillion things, and they all suck when you compare it to the ease of use that TeamViewer offers. What I also left out, is that I've already got the TeamViewer client running, because I remote into macOS and Windows.
  - Youden 7y ago
    Xvfb would give you the virtual desktop that the TeamViewer Server gives you access to. You'd still use the TeamViewer client to connect to it. Xvfb is just a way of running a graphical environment on a machine that doesn't otherwise have one.
    - cerberusss 7y ago
      That is... interesting. Is it maintained and packaged by the distros? It doesn't look like it. Duckduckgo gives me a bunch of old 2012-2013 results.
      - Youden 7y ago
        You should search your package manager, not Duckduckgo. On Debian-based distros it's simply called xvfb, on Arch Linux it's xorg-server-xvfb, in the RHEL ecosystem it's xorg-x11-server-Xvfb but might require enabling extra reporitories.
        cerberusss 7y ago
        That's a good tip, thanks. This is quite an interesting approach!
woadwarrior01 7y ago
I’m not trying to be snarky, but I’m curious, what is it that you like about TeamViewer? I don’t run X on any of my servers, so plain old ssh (and mosh) work well for me. Have you considered the alternatives, perhaps tunnelling VNC/RDP over ssh? TeamViewer hasn’t had the best track record[1] when it comes to security (compared to something like OpenSSH). [1]: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=TeamViewer http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=TeamViewer
- cerberusss 7y ago
  ssh works fine if you're using it as a server, sure. But sometimes, I want a Linux desktop complete with browser, torrent client, etc. I've considered the alternatives but I already remote into other platforms (Mac, Windows) so TeamViewer is already running on my desktop.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    > ssh works fine if you're using it as a server, sure woadwarrior01 only mentioned SSH as a transport to wrap RDP/VNC, both of which are remote desktops, just like TeamViewer. So combining SSH + RDP/VNC, you both get the security of SSH, and the remote desktop part. Windows even comes with RDP (maybe macOS also probably comes with RDP/VNC as well) so even less software to install/maintain!
    - cerberusss 7y ago
      Yeah, I got that tunneling was assumed. In fact, VNC is madness without SSH tunneling. However when you look at macOS, the only VNC client that automatically sets up SSH tunneling is Screens. But now comes the trick; one of your machines is behind a NAT. And it's macOS, or Windows, or what have you. No VNC client is going to help you here. With TeamViewer, this just works. There is no open source offering that comes close, to my knowledge, because of the need for a proxy service.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    I get a linux desktop with x2go. It operates entirely over ssh and is pretty easy to use and setup. It's very secure.

Youden 7y ago

Apparently TeamViewer supports headless Linux servers: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/remote-access-headless-linux/ https://www.teamviewer.com/en/remote-access-headless-linux/ I'm guessing what you're getting at here though is that you want to manage the server through a desktop interface, complete with windows and menus and the like. Most people don't do that on Linux servers because most of the things you need to interact with to administrate one are only accessible through a command line interface. That said, if you really want to manage a Linux server graphically, you might be able to make it work with something like Xvfb.

cerberusss 7y ago
Yeah, I want a desktop. I manage my server via ssh of course, any extra graphical cruft is a liability there. > Xvfb I might, but I've tried a zillion things, and they all suck when you compare it to the ease of use that TeamViewer offers. What I also left out, is that I've already got the TeamViewer client running, because I remote into macOS and Windows.
- Youden 7y ago
  Xvfb would give you the virtual desktop that the TeamViewer Server gives you access to. You'd still use the TeamViewer client to connect to it. Xvfb is just a way of running a graphical environment on a machine that doesn't otherwise have one.
  - cerberusss 7y ago
    That is... interesting. Is it maintained and packaged by the distros? It doesn't look like it. Duckduckgo gives me a bunch of old 2012-2013 results.
    - Youden 7y ago
      You should search your package manager, not Duckduckgo. On Debian-based distros it's simply called xvfb, on Arch Linux it's xorg-server-xvfb, in the RHEL ecosystem it's xorg-x11-server-Xvfb but might require enabling extra reporitories.
      - cerberusss 7y ago
        That's a good tip, thanks. This is quite an interesting approach!

woadwarrior01 7y ago

I’m not trying to be snarky, but I’m curious, what is it that you like about TeamViewer? I don’t run X on any of my servers, so plain old ssh (and mosh) work well for me. Have you considered the alternatives, perhaps tunnelling VNC/RDP over ssh? TeamViewer hasn’t had the best track record[1] when it comes to security (compared to something like OpenSSH). [1]: http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=TeamViewer http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=TeamViewer

cerberusss 7y ago
ssh works fine if you're using it as a server, sure. But sometimes, I want a Linux desktop complete with browser, torrent client, etc. I've considered the alternatives but I already remote into other platforms (Mac, Windows) so TeamViewer is already running on my desktop.
- capableweb 7y ago
  > ssh works fine if you're using it as a server, sure woadwarrior01 only mentioned SSH as a transport to wrap RDP/VNC, both of which are remote desktops, just like TeamViewer. So combining SSH + RDP/VNC, you both get the security of SSH, and the remote desktop part. Windows even comes with RDP (maybe macOS also probably comes with RDP/VNC as well) so even less software to install/maintain!
  - cerberusss 7y ago
    Yeah, I got that tunneling was assumed. In fact, VNC is madness without SSH tunneling. However when you look at macOS, the only VNC client that automatically sets up SSH tunneling is Screens. But now comes the trick; one of your machines is behind a NAT. And it's macOS, or Windows, or what have you. No VNC client is going to help you here. With TeamViewer, this just works. There is no open source offering that comes close, to my knowledge, because of the need for a proxy service.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  I get a linux desktop with x2go. It operates entirely over ssh and is pretty easy to use and setup. It's very secure.