How to Fast VNC alternativ to Remote Desktop to a Mac using NoMachine

I am a very happy Mac OS user with a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro coming soon, but one things I really miss about Mac OS X is the lack of a fast and standards based remote desktop solution. The VNC server built into Mac OS X isn’t really compatible with all clients, and I still haven’t figured out if it’s possible to run it with a different resolution and color depth than the real screen!!!

But, I recently re-discovered a solution I got to know in my Linux time on a desktop: NoMachine. You’ll need a server running a recent Linux distribution or OpenSolaris which will act as a kind of a proxy and the setup is a bit complex, but it does work well. I’ll show you how to do it running Ubuntu Lucid.

First go to http://www.nomachine.com/select-package.php?os=linux&id=1 select your architecture and download all three files: client, node and server.

Then install them in the following order, fix the missing dependecies and install a vnclient plus vncpassword:

sudo dpkg -i nxclient_3.4.0-7_x86_64.deb
sudo dpkg -i nxnode_3.4.0-11_x86_64.deb
sudo dpkg -i nxserver_3.4.0-12_x86_64.deb
sudo aptitude -f install
sudo aptitude install xvnc4viewer vnc4-common

Since it’s really advisable I hope you already have PasswordAuthentication no in your sshd_config to disable Password authentication and to only allow key-based authentication. You’ll need to tweak nxserver a bit to get it working with key-based auth. Edit /usr/NX/etc/server.cfg to…

EnablePasswordDB = "1"

…edit the following line in /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg to enable VNC…

CommandStartRFB = "/usr/bin/vncviewer -fullscreen"

…create a key for your key-based authentication and restart nxserver.

sudo /usr/NX/bin/nxserver --keygen
sudo service nxserver restart

Your new key is placed at /usr/NX/share/keys/default.id_dsa.key. Copy it the device you want to connect from using scp or similar tools. Now all you need to do is enable the users you wan’t in nxserver:

sudo /usr/NX/bin/nxserver --useradd <user>

This enables the user in NX’s database and copies the previously generated key to the user’s authorized_keys file.

Now just enable VNC on your Mac. Go to “System Preferences”, select “Sharing” and enable “Screen Sharing”:

Now you’ll need to configure your client. Read more…