Setting Up a VNC Server to View Local X-Session in Fedora 15/16 - UPDATE

*** UPDATE: This is now not needed in Fedora 16. They finally added a program for turning it on the old way. Just go to Internet then click on "Desktop Sharing". ***

This is the equivalent of turning on the "Remote Desktop" support in Fedora 14 and below. This feature is one of the many missing from Gnome 3.x. The following method will allow it to work again in Fedora 15/16.

Install x11vnc package.

yum install x11vnc

Run the following as the user who's session you want to VNC to. When prompted enter the password you want to use to connect with.

vncpasswd

Create a script to start the x11vnc server. Do this as the user you want it to run as, not root.

mkdir ~/bin
cd ~/bin
echo " #!/bin/sh" > start_x11vnc.sh
echo "x11vnc -noshm -many -background -rfbauth ~/.vnc/passwd -display :0" >> start_x11vnc.sh
chmod 755 start_x11vnc.sh

The following will run the "Gnome Startup Applications Preferences". Here we will setup the script to be ran when logging in.

gnome-session-properties

First click the "Add" button. Then fill out the following:

Name: X11VNC
Command: ~/bin/start_x11vnc.sh
Comment: Start X11VNC
Press the "Save" button.

That should do it.

NOTE: You may also have to update your iptables firewall to allow connections. To temporarily turn it off to test this do the following:

service iptables off