I have a ubuntu development server at work. It is an old rack server that is located somewhere in the company's dungeon, where nobody ever goes. The only way it can work is as a so-called headless server (i.e. with no monitor/keyboard connected and only accepting network connections).
Obviously, if you just need terminal access ssh is more than enough. I, however, would also like to connect to the graphical interface from time to time. At the moment I am using the built in VNC functionality but I am pretty sure this is neither the most efficient nor the most secure way of approaching this issue.
I have done a bit of research on the issue but failed to come to any definite conclusions. I read about trying to forward the X environment over ssh, which would at least solve my security concerns. Can anyone share their experiences in setting this up? Is there any other way that might be worth looking at?
I almost exclusively connect to this server from a Windows machine. I don't know if that might be a problem for some of the methods suggested.