Remote access solution for new KDE Neon

Help
1

Hi.

I updated the other day, and now I’m on KDE 6.0.0 with Wayland. It has caused a few inconveniences, nothing I cannot deal with until the kinks get worked out – But – One glaring issue for me is that of remote access. I used to use tiger VNC with certs (for encryption) for my remote access. That no longer works. Krb still works… but does not have encryption. Xrdp won’t work either with wayland… so what can I use? I know the kde team is developing something called krdp, and I have installed that, but it is very immature, and only appears to do screen scraping, which is not adequate for me. I need the local screen blanked while I work remotely due to the confidential nature of some of the work I do.

Does anyone know of any reasonable option for remote access that is encrypted and allows for local screen blanking?

Thanks.

2

Also using TigerVNC here, but not on neon.
The way I solve encryption is to use a vpn server installed on one of my raspberry pi:s.
Locally, there is no encryption. My thought process here is: “if my local network is breached, encryption on VNC is the least of my problems”. Besides, I only run the VNC server if I want to use a VNC client, ie, I start the server with a script in cli, connect with the VNC client, do my stuff, log off with VNC, and then stop the script in cli.
Outside my network the vpn server encrypts everything.

This made me curious, because it has been working for a long time for me, both on x11 and wayland.

I am still on plasma 5 so this is most likely a wayland thing, not a plasma thing.

But I just tested, and the method I use still works on x11.
The session has “moved” on wayland, so I can get the sddm login screen, witch is on tty2 on my setup (I think that is not the proper setup though) and log into x11, I am still on tty2.

But on wayland it spins up tty1, ie, tty2 is the “KDE logout/reboot/shutdown prompt”, and THAT is what my vnc connects to.
I can not see the screen on my client, but if I switch to tty2 on my computer, I can control the mouse there with my client.

So the issue is to find a way to connect to tty1, using sessions somehow.
Or maybe in my case, try to force wayland to stay on tty2.

If I find a solution I will come back with results.

3

It is most definitely a wayland thing. But Neon pushed wayland into the main stream last week, so here I am.

I cannot do as you are doing. Even on the local network it has to be encrypted. There is no wiggle room on that due to policy and due to federal contracts. If you do come up with something, that would be great if you would post it here. I will do the same… but so far, krdp seems to be the closest option… and it is not there yet.

4

Can you no longer use x11 at all? No drop down on SDDM?

Ah, I see. Yeah, my private network is probably not as important to protect as yours. xD
Would using SSH tunnel encryption be enough? (just spitting ideas here)

5

Oh yes, I most certainly can log into x11 (and it works) using my display manager… I was just trying to stay in the neon mainstream. I’ll just have to do that until I get a working solution.

ssh is an option, but it is going to slow things down… when I’m on my wireless hotspot, I have very limited bandwidth, and I’m looking for something that will work well under that condition.

I did just notice that wayvnc supports certs… I’ll have to check that out. I’ll report back if it seems like a good solution :slight_smile:

Thanks!

1 Like
6

Well, wayvnc was a dead end as well. It does not support KDE. Maybe some day…

The only two options on the horizon appear to be wayvnc and krdp – but only if they become more robust. KRDP doesn’t support screen blanking for the local session or headless operation, and wayvnc does not (yet?) support KDE. So, for now, I iwill just have to operate in X11… which is a bit buggy in KDE Neon (as of today anyway). That is real bummer. I feel like this wasn’t thought through well. Remote access is pretty standard these days, and not having it is extremely crippling for the work environment.

7

To be honest, if you use it as a work environment, you should probably not use Neon.

f.ex Suse or even RHEL are enterprise and super stable for a reason. KDE might be a problem there though, but if you want a system that should focus on security, reliability, stability and accessibility, looking into one of those is really not a bad idea.

Further, I do not think you should rely on a system that is basically a repository. KDE Neon is not a distribution, and apt should never be used f.ex.
ONLY use flatpak or snap.

8

I’ve looked at the offerings of other distros. I like the balance that neon provides. With its Ubuntu under-pinnings, it is supported, without having to be full-blown ubuntu.

KDE is best suited, IMHO, for someone who does a lot of different work with a lot of multi-tasking… technical, artistic, movie editing, CAD, 3D printing, Office, scripting, web work, photo work… I like neon because I like having the more current offerings of KDE than any other distros I deal with. Being on SUSE (which I didn’t care for) and RedHat, which I bailed on many years ago, just puts me back in the same situation as being on KDE on neon would… and I’d have to use older versions of KDE apps. I liked Gentoo a lot, but they were lagging on too many apps I used heavily (including KDE components), and all that compiling is too cumbersome when I have deadlines to meet. So I think I’m good where I am. No matter what distro you are on, there is always some headache to put up with… and this particular vexation would be pretty much for any distro anyway at this point. So far, neon suits my needs best. I just think they jumped the gun on the wayland thing a bit… but I’ll deal.

9

KDE neon is NOT A DISTRIBUTION!!!

KDE Neon is great if you:

  • Want absolute latest KDE software.
  • ONLY USE FLATPAK AND SNAP for other applications.
  • Do not care if other software and linux kernel is old
  • Are ok with reinstalling with every new LTS release from ubuntu

KDE Neon is NOT great if you:

  • Want the latest kernel and software outside of KDE
  • Want documentation
  • Want to do ANY modifications outside of the KDE desktop
  • Want support

If you want a combination of above, ie latest KDE AND latest software, I am afraid the only solution would be to join a rolling release distro.

10

OK! OK! my bad! sorry! :slight_smile: We’ll say “Linux-based Desktop solution” then…

And I agree, and am OK with that. I’ve been using Linux-based solutions as primary for 25 years now, I’ve played with most variants. I’ve been using neon for about 4 now, and it has served me as well or better than any other variant I’ve used for work and for home. It is a good desktop system, whatever else it may or may not be.

1 Like