Remmina, the last remote desktop client you’ll ever need

2010-08-20 22:43 +00:00 | 16 comments

I’ve been searching for a good remote desktop client for a long time. My requirements are simple. It must:

save passwords
manage connections via the GUI
support VNC and RDP
work with our IP KVM

This last requirement is the kicker. When I change hosts on our Adderview IP KVM, it draws one frame at 0x0 resolution, and then changes to the resolution of the new host. This has crashed every VNC client I’ve tried except xvnc4viewer. Which of course, doesn’t save passwords or have a GUI (the raw X menu when you press F8 does not count).

I have tried KRDC, Vinagre, xtightvncviewer, and a number of simpler command-line VNC clients. They all seem to be designed to support the “my Mom needs tech support” problem, not the “I manage remote servers” problem. KRDC won’t even login to my KVM; it just hangs after authentication. I suppose that’s better than crashing, but it is still a show stopping bug for me.

Over a year ago, I hacked up a scripted solution involving zenity GTK dialogs, saved password files, and xvnc4viewer, but I’m not going to release that. Instead, meet the last remote desktop client you’ll ever need: Remmina.

Remmina meets all of my requirements, has tons of useful features, and works flawlessly. Not only that, it is extremely responsive. Key presses are limited only by the round-trip time, with no added delay from VNC itself. There are no redrawing or tearing problems. It supports full-screen mode and scrolling inside a view port. It can forward over SSH and will use SSH keys files or your SSH key agent. It can synchronise the clipboard between host and remote server; this is the first time I’ve actually seen that feature work reliably. It can even open a standard SSH or SFTP session, or host a VNC server.

Installation is easy. An older release is available in the Ubuntu Lucid Universe repository, or get the latest version from their PPA.

Tags: lucid, ssh, ubuntu, vnc

16 comments

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cpt0 on 2010-08-20 at 22:58 +00:00

Very nice to know, especially since i mainly use the Standard remote desktop client that comes on my lucid netbook remix.

Reply
Tom Purl on 2010-08-23 at 16:45 +00:00

Thanks for pointing this out! This is much better than tsclient (at least in my opinion).

Reply
rich on 2011-01-02 at 19:10 +00:00

great but… where are the guidelines on making remmina work? I have googled a lot on this and don’t find sufficient doc to get this to work. I am trying to run remmina client on ubuntu, must connect over SSH, use NAT routing on both the client and server ends, and have vncserver on the server. I can’t get remmina in this config to work.

regards,
rich

Reply
1. Tyler Wagner on 2011-01-03 at 00:18 +00:00
  
  Rich,
  
  It sounds to me like you have a network problem, not a Remmina problem. I’ve used it for VNC and RDP, including using SSH port forwarding, and it works. For instance:
  
  1. Add a new connection.
  2. Protocol VNC (not incoming connection)
  3. Set server and password (VNC password)
  4. On SSH tab, enable SSH tunnel, set port if not 22, and SSH authentication
  
  This works just fine for me.
  
  Reply
  1. Anuj on 2012-10-10 at 11:35 +00:00
    
    Hi Guys,
    
    I have a following setup and I am not able to reach VNC session via SSH Tunnel, am I doing this right ?
    
    1. Add a new connection.
    2. Protocol VNC (not incoming connection)
    3. Set server and password (VNC password)
    * Server
    * Repeater
    4. On SSH tab, enable SSH tunnel, set port if not 22, and SSH authentication
    * [x] Enable SSH Tunnel
    * [x] Tunnel via loopback addr.
    * SSH Server, Custom
    
    So in my case it appears that Remmina is able to ssh into the given ssh server & port, and tries to connect to vncserver & port, but fails.
    Maybe I could not understand how Remmina expects me to configure for my usecase, so I would appreciate your help to have me this client setup working.
    
    Regards,
    Anuj
    
    Reply
    1. Anuj on 2012-10-10 at 11:38 +00:00
      
      lost some values of my remmina input I shared above in HTML formatting, let me try again, for step 3 above:
      
      3. Set server and password (VNC password)
      * Server [server1.com:5905]
      * Repeater [empty]
      
      Note: My VNC server is on the same box where ssh server is but its port is not exposed from firewall. This works fine for me from the ssh tunneling on command line.
      
      Reply
      1. Anuj on 2012-10-10 at 11:39 +00:00
        
        woops lost more into html formatting, so for Step4:
        
        4. On SSH tab, enable SSH tunnel, set port if not 22, and SSH authentication
        * [x] Enable SSH Tunnel
        * [x] Tunnel via loopback addr.
        * SSH Server, Custom [server1:4045]
        
        Reply
        
        Anuj on 2012-10-11 at 17:29 +00:00
        
        I guess I figured out something, since I also need to use tunnel because I am behind a strict proxy,
        So due to that I am even running remmina from proxychains, and that then fails vnc session to run from localhost as its supposed to be from.
        I am finding how proxychains can ignore particular hosts in meantime :)
        
        Reply
        
        Tyler Wagner on 2012-10-12 at 09:01 +00:00
        
        Hi Anuj,
        
        It would help if you explained or diagrammed the network path between you and the server. Am I correct in understanding that you need to tunnel directly to the machine on which you will access VNC? Or do you need to first SSH to a router or server behind a firewall, then VNC from there?
        
        Assuming “server” is the server behind the firewall, and “vnchost” is the VNC server (these can be the same), test the following.
        
        ssh -L 5900:vnchost:5905 username@server
        Using Remmina or any VNC client, connect to VNC on server “localhost”
        
        If that works, then you have a good network path that works with SSH port forwards, and can do the same in Remmina. Use:
        
        Basic tab:
        Protocol: VNC
        Server: “vnchost” above
        Username, Password: [as you know]
        
        SSH tab:
        [x] Enable SSH tunnel
        [ ] Tunnel via loopback address
        SSH server – custom, “server” as above
        SSH authentication – your login for “server”
        
        Reply
        
        Anuj on 2012-12-19 at 19:26 +00:00
        
        Hi Tyler,
        
        Sorry for late notice of your response, to be honest, I figured out the problem outside remmina.
        I was using remmina above ‘proxychains’ and in that setup, proxychains would not let remmina reach the tunnel on localhost.
        
        I could finally resolve this issue by creating a proxychains patch rpm, of an existing localhost exception patch of proxychains.
        
        Cheers !
        
        Reply
        
        Ivan on 2012-03-13 at 13:52 +00:00
        
        Some Remmina users got a problem with clipboard: copy-paste operations doesnt work properly as like clipboard doesnt sync at all. The solution is to keep tsclient package installed alongside with remmina. I didnt catch what does tsclient package contains for clipboard working, but it solves the problem. Hope that would be helpful.
        
        Thanks!
        
        Reply
        
        Tyler Wagner on 2012-03-13 at 14:06 +00:00
        
        It solves the problem in Remmina as well, Ivan? Do you have any links to bug reports about this?
        
        Reply
        
        ajian on 2014-04-04 at 02:22 +00:00
        
        I got the problem of remmina clipboard not working in ubuntu,you said “The solution is to keep tsclient package installed alongside with remmina”,but how? Could you show me the detail? like “sudo apt-get install sth. ” etc
        
        Reply
        
        Enverex on 2014-08-04 at 15:41 +00:00
        
        Remmina is terrible and anyone that has to use it on a frequent basis will confirm this. It is liable to crash randomly (just disappears in the middle of sessions), has issues with RDP due to key changes and silent failures, etc. Their bug-tracker has simple to fix bugs that have been open for years and the development team either don’t exist or simply don’t fix problems.
        
        Unfortunately Linux doesn’t really have anything else similar available.
        
        Reply
        
        Tyler Wagner on 2014-08-05 at 07:39 +00:00
        
        Oh yes, I agree. This post was true when I wrote it. Since Ubuntu 12.04, Remmina has been nothing but trouble. Remote side changes resolutions? Crash. Accessing a KVM over VNC? Crash at least 50% of the time. Copy/paste sync reliably? Good luck.
        
        I actually use tight vnc viewer with a password-saving wrapper script now. It’s frustrating.
        
        Reply
        
        Bill Westrup on 2015-11-14 at 18:10 +00:00
        
        Remmina partially fails on Point 1: According to the programmer: “ssh passwords can not be saved” this is despite the “save” checkbox being present. This may be pain for many. (Disclaimer: Not sure if this is still actually true, though, the last response I could find on the Remmina support mailing list to this question was a few years ago. Nonetheless, if there is a “secret trick” to get this working, it’s not widely disseminated or easy to find.)
        
        Of course none of this would be an issue if Remmina could use an existing ssh tunnel. Unfortunately, while that also “seems” supported it doesn’t actually work, either. (You can enable using a loop back port and enter a port number, but it never connects.)
        
        Reply