Setting up remote access to Linux system

[chtorogu]

Hi,

 

I'm putting together a PC with older but capable parts to give to my nephews as a Christmas gift. To get the most out of the system, for stability and to enable them to learn more about how it works and give them more freedom to make it how they want it as they learn, I'm going to install a Linux distro (probably Mint.) However, they're new to PCs (though the eldest is interested in computers and learning quick how to use Linux on his school Chromebook, after I set that up for him) so I would need a way to remotely manage it for them. I would like unattended access to it, preferably both through remote desktop and SSH. What would be the best way to go about this?

 

Thanks in advance.

[maplepants]

I recommend you setup SSH and then access the system remotely with tailscale or zerotier. A peer to peer VPN solution like that will let you avoid having to punch a whole in your friends firewall at home.

 

Just be careful with key expiries and make sure you refresh those logins before they expire. 

 

[chtorogu]

Thanks, guys, for your suggestions. Will look into that. It seems more complicated than I would have hoped but will be an interesting project to attempt. I can see some other uses for it as well, so it's worth a try.

[thevictor390]

I've used x11-vnc in the past, seems to work fine, but you'd have to script it to auto start with the right configuration. This is a GUI solution to run on top of the above suggestions to get onto the network.

[Ralphred]

18 hours ago, thevictor390 said:

I've used x11-vnc in the past

That's a bit overkill, you can just allow x11-fowarding and open GUI apps on the client machine (re: local machine) from the ssh terminal.

There even used to be a program to do this on windows, but I've not used that this century so YMMV with that...

[thevictor390]

1 hour ago, Ralphred said:

That's a bit overkill, you can just allow x11-fowarding and open GUI apps on the client machine (re: local machine) from the ssh terminal.

There even used to be a program to do this on windows, but I've not used that this century so YMMV with that...

If you're troubleshooting with someone remotely, seeing their screen along with them is definitely not overkill.

[Ralphred]

38 minutes ago, thevictor390 said:

If you're troubleshooting with someone

TeamViewer works better than vnc for that kind of support as it uses a "masquerade sidestep" for firewalls, meaning when disabled there is no security disadvantage.

OP was talking about doing maintenance, a desktop is overkill for maintenance.

[thevictor390]

9 minutes ago, Ralphred said:

TeamViewer works better than vnc for that kind of support as it uses a "masquerade sidestep" for firewalls, meaning when disabled there is no security disadvantage.

OP was talking about doing maintenance, a desktop is overkill for maintenance.

OP mentioned remote desktop specifically. However Teamviewer would also work. I forgot that it could host on Linux.

[tortellini88]

From experience managing Linux desktop systems in IT. If you want an easy and quick solution, Teamviewer. if you want something more "in-house". VNC Scraping Server - 

With VNC, you just need a way to VPN into the other machine's network.