Remote connection to locally running X session

One of the good (few) features windows has is it's RDP protocol implementation. This wonder allows me to work with my 2 screen setup in the office, then drive home, open a VPN connection followed by RDP connection to the office PC from home and get my environment exactly as I left it (except from the screen resolution which adapted to my home PC screen hardware).

The above works, and it works great - On Windows. I want the same feature on Linux. I want to be able to open a Gnome / KDE / (other windows manager supports this feature) at the office computer then connect from home and have the displays exported to my current screen.

I've tried several possible work around like having a VNC session constantly open and connecting to it both from work and from home - This works but is no fun (you lose the responsiveness of the "native" application, access to local storage and co.).

Could you suggest a solution? Perhaps some Xorg plugin ?

Thank you for reading, Maxim.


Solution 1:

Yes, the Xorg module allows you to share your :0 (local) display. In /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the "Module" section add

    Load "vnc"

and in the "Screen" section add:

    Option "SecurityTypes" "VncAuth"
    Option "UserPasswdVerifier" "VncAuth"
    Option "PasswordFile" "/root/.vnc/passwd"

Do explore other options for "UserPasswdVerifier." The VNC server will listening on tcp port 5900. Even using a VPN I would not directly connect to the port. Block all non-localhost access and use an SSH tunnel.