VNC install

Last change on 2023-11-30 • Created on 2020-05-18 • ID: RO-CB7C7

VNC installation

You can do VNC installations via Robot.

VNC is software that shows the screen output of a remote computer (running the VNC server software) on a local computer (running the VNC viewer software). It can send keyboard and mouse movements that are made on the local computer to the remote computer. So you can install the remote computer as though you are sitting directly in front of the remote computer and monitor.

During this process, all data is copied over the network. Since the data you need is located on Hetzner's download servers, the installation of the packets should not take longer then when installing from a USB drive or DVD.

However, you need a VNC client (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing) to access the installation routine.

How do I start a VNC installation?

To start a VNC installation, click on the VNC tab of your server on Robot. Here, you will see a dropdown list of available operating systems, as well as the architecture and the language. After selecting the configuration you want, and pressing the activate button, you will see a password. Use this password to log into the VNC installation a few minutes after you restart the server. The VNC address would be:

<IP Address>:1

or

<IP Address>:5901

Example:

192.168.0.1:1
192.168.0.1:5901

Which operating systems and versions can be installed using VNC?

  • CentOS 7.9
  • Fedora 39
  • openSUSE 15.6

Specifics: openSuSE

The VNC installation of openSuSE is done in two steps. First, the languages​​, the time, the partitions, the packages, etc. are selected and the boot loader is installed. After installation, the system will reboot and automatically setup a VNC connection again. You can login (again) with the previously used password. In this second step, the installation is completed, which usually requires only minimal user interaction. The system then reboots normally and is accessible via SSH.

If RealVNC or UltraVNC are used as VNC clients, then under certain circumstances, disconnections can happen. If this happens to you, try the following configurations:

  • Hextile Encoding
  • Color Level Low (256 colors)

Specifics: Fedora

During the installation, a firewall is activated automatically. By default, only a small handful of ports are approved, including SSH. Instead of iptables firewalld is now the default firewall. You can change the settings on the firewall using the following program:

firewall-cmd

You cannot install Fedora 25 on the virtual server CX10 since more than 1GB RAM is required for the installation.

Table of Contents