Hi,

Is it possible to remotely work on a different Linux desktop? More specifically, I want to set up my mom's printer on her Linux desktop without driving 4 hours (one way).

I remember a friend of mine had some niffty, but scary, Windows tool he used when I had a Windows problem. He emailed it to me and had me install it. Then, all of the sudden, the mouse curser started moving around on the screen by itself! Obviously he was fixing stuff. When finished he had me unistall it.

I don't know if Linux has anything exactly like that and who knows, I might not need something exactly like that. Still, I think the example illustrates my point.

I have been reading about something called "fish." Would that work? It seems kind of complex. All I want to do is set up her localhost, make sure CUPS is installed and make sure her printer prints, without driving 4 hours to do so.

Any thoughts? Thanks!!!!!

If you setup sshd server and have it running, then as long as the port 22 is open to the internet then you should be able to use a command like this to run X apps from that machine and have it displayed on yours.
ssh -Y username@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
replace username with the name of a user on the remote machine except root.
replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the ip of the machine seen from the internet.
The -Y allows an X app to run on the ssh connection if the sshd server allows this. Now you will have a terminal session so then you can run the remote users firefox, nautilus,konquorer, or any number of other web browser capable software. The enter the 127.0.0.1:631 to make the connection to the cups server.

Some of this depends on the internet setup. If broadband and have a router after the modem and before the machine then it needs to have a port forward setup to forward external IP port 22 to internal IP of the machine to work on. Also some providers block common ports like this so they can charge more to allow you to run a server. So if this is the case then you called connect to the external IP plus say port 10100 as example. Then the router forwards this connection to the internal IP at port 22 when defined.

Another way is setup VNC and use that. Or one can even VNC over SSH conection for secure encrytion.

Now depending on the distro and maybe the gui there may be a remote control tool like KRCD and a few others. Again depends on the system. If broadband and firewall router involved then again port forward may have to take place on either the remote of local end. Depending on which tool is used and who estianates the connection.

The easiest is to do the same thing on your machine while talking your mom through the process.

Brian

I haven't tried it yet, but I heard NX will even work over slow connections:

http://freshmeat.net/projects/nx/

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8477

http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr=&q=NX&btnG=Search

VNC (preferrably tunneled over ssh) would be the way to go here. NX is another good option as well.

What about security while doing this remote work? I admit most, if not all, of what has been posted is too technical, so I won't attempt it. Still, I am curious. How secure would it be to do this type of remote work on Linux desktops sitting several hours away? Would it be more or less secure than Windows, or is that a totally separate can of worms to open on a different forum?

Thanks for your replies!

I've never used NX so I can't comment there but vanilla VNC is not all that secure. This being said, if you tunnelled VNC through ssh (plenty of info on Google) then it's as secure as ssh which means you have nothing to worry about

VNC over SSH is the perferred way to use VNC over the internet. This way only one service is open to the outside and you can do so many things with. You forward any port over it so it looks like it is local. Great to if the remote machine is a mail server and you need to use it outside your ip settings.

If you can do everything in terminal session no gui then ssh is the easiest and securiest way to go.

To even make it more secure change the default port 22 to say 10010 and then at least it should stop most basic password attempts the script kiddies try to use.

Brian