I just set up a TightVNC Server on a Linux Mint box which I access from a Windows 7 machine. I'm using TightVNC Viewer over a SSH tunnel. I'm able to access and remotely control the Linux Mint machine as you would expect.

However, tonight when I was trying to remotely help the user of this machine, I found out that they can't see anything I'm doing and I can't see anything they're doing. It's like we're in two different user sessions or something. Thing is, I'm clearly under their user name (the only user account on the computer) and their files are all there. But we can't see each other using the same desktop.

To further illustrate the issue, they had firefox open, but I couldn't see it. When I tried to open Firefox (because I thought it was closed) I got the standard error that an instance is already running.

What's up with this? Is this one of the options when running VNC? I didn't know this was possible. Does it have something to do with the SSH tunnel? I'd like for both of us to be able to see each others' movements and windows.

Hi there,

I'm using a similar setup, but just the other way round: I'm remote-controlling a Windows PC from my Linux box (when the Windows user asks for it).

I'm not sure, but I guess the X server actually considers VNC like another, separate X session. However, you want the local and the remote user to share the same session.
Since I've never used the VNC server side on Linux, I can't help you in detail. But I'd try to browse through the VNC server settings and look for something like "shared session" or "shared desktop".

I don't believe it's related to SSH, because once the SSH tunnel is established, it looks fully transparent from an application's point of view.

Good luck. :-)
(yes, that's serious, I'm not being sarcastic here)

[X] Doc CPU

vncserver will create a new user session when you connect via vnc, and give it it's own console screen and desktop.

I use x11vnc when I need to share the remote screen on a linux computer. Windows TightVNC will share the remote vnc screen by default when vnc'ing between windows machines.

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VNC is indeed considered another X11 session. It's not a way to control an existing session. IIRC there's no ready way of doing that like there is in Windows due to a lot of redirections needed.

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Interesting. This would explain why it used to work when I would assist the other person with their Windows XP computer. So, I'm gathering that the only way to do this is to use x11vnc. I'm not familiar with it so I'll have to do some research. Is it complicated? I like TightVNC because it's simple and light.

If it helps this is the command line I use to start x11vnc and set up sharing the console over port 5911. I use this internally only, there is no security and no password with this setup

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