remote access between ubuntu desktops 16.04, no connection

Question

I hope this is going to be a simple fix, here is whats happening:

I am trying to connect to my work computer from my home computer using remmina, but I cant get my home computer to connect - remmina just says "connecting to myserver" for hours without actually connecting. Both computers are running ubuntu 16.04 desktop.

On my work computer, I enabled remote desktop sharing and required a password. I also installed dconf-editor, proceeded to >org>gnome>desktop>remote-access and unchecked the require-encryption box. To find my hostname I typed the following:

hostname -I

Which returned my IP address.

On my laptop, I opened remmina, added a new connection, selected vnc - virtual network computing, typed the ip address correctly, typed my user name and required password... and then two hours later remmina was still "connecting". I tried again but using and rdp protocol, and the same thing happened again.

I am literally sitting in front of my work computer, with my laptop in my lap, both computers are connected to the same network (laptop wireless, desktop ethernet), and nothing - remmina is still just trying as hard as she can to connect without success.

Other relevant information: My work computer is an old dell server. I run ubuntu desktop on it instead of ubuntu server. I work at a large university, so I dont have the ability to mess with the network. However, windows and mac machines can remote access into the university (including my windows machine), suggesting I miraculously managed to mess up the easiest remote desktop protocol ever.

I am very sorry for asking such a basic question, but all other answers I find instruct me to do as I have already done. This would be easier if I could at least get an error to chase but I don't have one. Thank you for your help, it is greatly appreciated.

edit:

I can successfully ssh into my work computer from my laptop, but rammina cant successfully ssh tunnel. I get a failed to bind on local port error. I would like a full desktop share...

Answer 1

I'm no expert at this but I've been experimenting with remote access on my local network recently and I think the problem is the IP address that you are entering into the 'Server' field.

It's probably the correct IP address for using with an ssh connection but it wants a VNC server address.

In case this is helpful for others, I'll go through all the steps that got it to work for me using the VNC Server option.

Keep in mind that, as far as I can tell, using ssh is a far more secure way to access a remote machine than using VNC. If it's just over your local network then it shouldn't be too much of a security worry, but I've not yet had any luck getting Remmina to work using the SSH tunnel options despite being able to connect fine using ssh from the Terminal.

Firstly I went to the computer I wanted to access remotely and searched in the dash for Desktop Sharing.

From there I could choose to 'Allow other users to view your desktop' and 'Allow other users to control your desktop'.

(You're also able to choose whether you want the remote machine to have to acknowledge that this is okay before allowing access and/or whether you require the user to enter a password before access is granted.)

Once this was enabled, when I went to my other machine and opened Remmina Remote Desktop Client, I created a new profile and selected the Protocol to be VNC - Virtual Network Computing.

Next to Server the option to 'Browse the network to find a VNC server' was now enabled and clicking on that dotted icon showed two options for the same machine using IPv6 or IPv4 protocols.

Selecting one (either of them should work fine) will now fill the Server option with something like:

[YourRemoteComputerName.local]:5900

I initially filled in the 'User name' and 'Password' fields but that isn't necessary for it to work.

Change the Name field at the top to allow you to save the profile, hit Connect and you should now have remote access to your other machine.