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Ubuntu Setup

Install Ubuntu GUI*

*Graphical User Interface

  1. Setup droplet
  2. $ sudo apt-get update

For XFCE4 GUI (Preferred in my case)

  1. $ sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies

For Ubuntu Desktop GUID

  1. $ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
  2. $ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop
  3. $ sudo apt-get install gnome-core

Finally….

  1. $ reboot

Enabling X11 Forwarding for GUI

$ sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

and make sure X11Forwarding yes is set

How to Install and Configure VNC Server on Ubuntu 19.04

Step 1: Install

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install vnc4server

Step 2: Set a secure password

$ vncpasswd

// You will be prompted for a VNC password (needed to establish connection to your server later on)
Password:
Verify:

Step 3: Create a .XAuthority if it doesn’t exist

In order to start vncserver a .XAuthority file must exist at cd /home/$(whoami).

Otherwise you will get this error.

If the file is not created, create it as follow:

$ cd /home/$(whoami)
$ touch .Xauthority

Step 4: Setup VNC Startup commands

When we connect o VNC the commands inside xstartup file will be executed.

Warning: The config you put here will vary depending on your “Desktop Environment”.
In my case (and yours if you are following along since the beginning), you will be using the the ubuntu gnome.

Run

$ sudo vim ~/.vnc/xstartup

Then copy and paste the following

#!/bin/sh

export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &

gnome-panel &
gnome-session &
gnome-settings-daemon &
metacity &
nautilus &
gnome-terminal &

vnc4server requires us to install the following packages if we want it to display the desktop correctly

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel gnome-settings-daemon metacity nautilus gnome-terminal

At this moment, we are ready to start vnc server.

sudo vncserver :1

// A VNC/X11 server is already running as :1 on machine YOUR_MACHINE

:1 means screen #1

We can go further and specify screen options:

vncserver :1 -geometry 1280x1024 -depth 24

Step 5: Testing connection

Open a terminal and create a session with a tunnel between the server and our local machine on port 5901.

$ ssh my_user@my_server -C  -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901

Open your VNC Viewer client on your local machine.

Enter your VNC Server password

A warning will popup telling you that the connection to your VNC Server will be not encrypted.

How to do the same thing on Windows?

ssh is not available to you out of the box on windows cmd. You will have to download a tool called PuTTY to help you here.

Then, using putty, you must create your ssh tunnel.

And do exactly the same I did to connect to our VNCSever using VNCViewer (RealVNC)

Installing a better GUI

I was not very happy with the initial interface, for that reason I decided to install xfce.org. Here what I did.

sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies

mv ~/.vnc/xstartup ~/.vnc/xstartup.bak.gome_version

Then we create a new xstartup file by running

sudo nano ~/.vnc/xstartup

and adding the following content to it

#!/bin/bash
xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
startxfce4 &

Now we start VNC server

vncserver

And I create my ssh tunnel again

ssh user@server -C  -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901

Then, I connected to the server through VNC Viewer.

Normally everything should work just fine by If for some reason you come across the error below, here’s the fix.

Run the following commands and reboot the server

mv ~/.config ~/.config-old
mv ~/.cache ~/.cache-old


sudo rebook

Then repeat the last two steps to see if the error is gone.

Creating a VNC Service File

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@.service
chown $(whoami) /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@.service
chmod 777 /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@.service

Then paste the following content but don’t forget to replace “ubuntu” by your own username.

[Unit]
 Description=Remote desktop service (VNC)
 After=syslog.target network.target

 [Service]
 Type=forking
 User=ubuntu
 PIDFile=/home/ubuntu/.vnc/%H:%i.pid
 ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i > /dev/null 2>&1
 ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1280x800 :%i
 ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i

 [Install]
 WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then let’s make our systemctl aware of our service file by running the following commands

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl enable --now vncserver@1

$ sudo systemctl restart vncserver@1

Installing a FTP Client

$ sudo apt-get install filezilla

Installing a FTP Server

sudo apt install -y vsftpd

If your firewall is enabled don’t forget to set the following rules:

sudo ufw allow 20/tcp
sudo ufw allow 21/tcp
sudo ufw allow 50000:55000/tcp

Then setup your vsftpd.conf file at /etc/vsftpd.conf

listen=YES
local_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd

# Enable upload by local user.
write_enable=YES

# Enable read by anonymous user (without username and password).
secure_chroot_dir=/var/run/vsftpd/empty
anonymous_enable=YES
anon_root=/srv/ftp
allow_anon_ssl=YES
no_anon_password=YES


# CUSTOM CONFIGURATION


# Allow local logins without the use of ssl
force_local_logins_ssl=NO
force_local_data_ssl=NO

# Enable passive mode
pasv_enable=YES
pasv_max_port=55000
pasv_min_port=50000

# Optionally - Define which users are allowed to use the FTP
userlist_enable=YES
userlist_file=/etc/vsftpd.userlist
userlist_deny=NO

If you included the last 3 (optional) configuration lines, make sure to specify your allowed users in /etc/vsftpd.userlist. Mine has a single line with my ftp user.

Don’t forget to restart your FTP server

-- Stop
$ sudo systemctl stop vsftpd

-- Start again
$ sudo systemctl start vsftpd

If you have directories owned by root in your user’s home directory make sure to give your user’s the ownership, otherwise you won’t be able to write files into those directories

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /home/$(whoami)

TeamViewer

Removing all files from teamviewer:

https://community.teamviewer.com/t5/forums/forumtopicprintpage/board-id/Linux/message-id/2582/print-single-message/true/page/1

Update TimeZone

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

If tzadata is not installed you can install it by running

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tzdata

Alternative Pkg Managers

sudo apt-get install aptitude
or 
sudo apt-get install gdebi

sudo apt-get install synaptic
apt install menu
su-to-root -X -c $app

XRDP

# allow just RDP through the local firewall

sudo ufw allow 3389/tcp

# restart xrdp 
sudo /etc/init.d/xrdp restart

Installing VirtualBox 6.0

How to install virtual box on ubuntu 19.x

$ sudo apt-get install gdebi

Then Download file from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

$ sudo gebi PATH_TO_YOUR_LOCAL_.DEB_FILE

In my case I had to run sudo gdebi virtualbox-6.1_6.1.0-135406~Ubuntu~eoan_amd64.deb

Links

https://computingforgeeks.com/how-to-install-vnc-server-on-ubuntu-18-04-lts/

https://askubuntu.com/a/475036

Other issues:

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Márcio Reis

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