Raspberry Pi OS comes with RealVNC server already setup, it can be enabled with sudo rasp-config. While this is convenient and 'just works' it unfortunately only works well with the RealVNC viewer with the default setup.
Since switching to Linux, I prefer to use TigerVNC viewer, so I either need to fiddle with the realvnc server settings to make it compatible (and only using VNC based authenication, instead of unix users) or I can setup TigerVNC server on the pi too.
Installation
Installation is straight forward. I want to use the vncserver that runs on top of an actual Xorg display (ie. my RPi's touch screen), and not a virtual one, at least not yet, so I installed just the xorg-extension server:
$ sudo apt install tigervnc-xorg-extension
Configuration
With this (mostly undocumented!) extension, it's possible to configure Xorg to also serve as a vncserver without having to run a separate vncserver process.
First, we need to create a xorg configuration file to load the extension in:
$ sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
$ sudo emacs /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10.vnc.conf
With the following content:
Section "Module"
Load "vnc"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Option "Desktop" "PrinterPi Touchscreen"
Option "SecurityTypes" "TLSPlain"
Option "PlainUsers" "taylor"
EndSection
Here's what the options do:
- Desktop gives the vncserver a name, otherwise it's just X11. This is the name displayed in the title of the viewer window.
- SecurityTypes controls how the viewer authenticates. TLSPlain means that only an encrypted connection is accepted, and that a username and password from the system are used to verify authentication.
- PlainUsers is a list of users that are allowed to login to this vncserver. Note: they all get the same permissions once logged in, so if a user is logged into the rpi desktop, any action taken will be as that user.
After that, reboot or sudo systemctl restart lightdm and you'll be able to connect to the RPi with Tiger vncviewer.