How to set up a VNC server

The tutorial today will show you how to run a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) server on your Raspberry Pi. This will allow you to view your Pi’s desktop and control your Pi like your computer was a monitor for it. This can be useful if you would like to install a program via GUI. The program we are going to install is tightVNC server.

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

Once you have installed tightVNC then you have done all of the necessary installation requirements to get the VNC server started. Next you need to start the VNC server to get it up and running you run the command;

vncserver

After you run this command you will be asked to enter a password for your VNC server. Now you server has been set up and fully configured. The next stage is making sure that you have set up port forwarding on your router. To be able to use the VNC server, you need to port forward port 5900 to the ip address of your Pi. Port forwarding is different on each router so it is impossible for me to show you how to do that, please refer to your routers brand website.

After you have forwarded the port 5900 to your Pi, you can now go ahead and connect to your Raspberry Pi. The program that I use is VNC viewer. It is a free program that is available on all major platforms. Go to https://www.realvnc.com/download/ to download this program.

Once it has installed, open the VNC viewer. Once the program has opened you should then get the connection box;