With Public Cloud Services, customers are able to access an instance via the VNC (Virtual Network Computing) console. This allows them to bypass networking or firewall misconfigurations, which may lock them out of an instance through other protocols (e.g., RDP or SSH). In this article, we will discuss the preparation necessary to use the VNC console, as well as how to access it.
Topics
Setting a Password for the Root User in Linux
Note: Windows users will not need to use this step. Their credentials will be created in the VNC console upon installation of their instance. If you are a Windows user attempting to learn how to access the VNC console to set up your credentials, please proceed to the next section.
Before accessing the VNC console from a Linux-based OS, we first need to elevate our access to root and set a password. These credentials will be necessary for logging in to the OS from the VNC console.
To begin, SSH into your instance using the SSH key that was configured when the instance was created. To find your login information for your instance, check out the instance's "Login information" under the "Networks" box on the instance's details page.
In our example, we are using Ubuntu 18.04. Adjust the default naming conventions accordingly for your own OS and unique IP address.
$ ssh ubuntu@INSTANCE_IP_ADDRESS
Once you are logged into your instance, become the root user using the following command:
$ sudo su
Now, set a password using the passwd command.
# passwd root
You will be prompted to enter and retype your password to confirm the change. When you are finished, you will receive the following output:
Enter new UNIX password: Retype new UNIX password: passwd: password updated successfully
Now that we have successfully set the password for the root user, let's take a look at accessing the instance via the VNC console.
Accessing the VNC Console from the OVHcloud Manager
To begin, log in to the OVHcloud Manager and click Public Cloud in the top-left corner of the page. Then, on the following screen, click the arrow button next to project name in the top-left corner of the screen. Now select the project with the instance you wish to access via VNC.
Next, click the Instances button under the "Compute" menu on the left-hand sidebar. Then select the instance you wish to access via VNC by clicking on its name.
Next, click the VNC console tab on your instance's details screen. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the Open in a new window button to open the VNC console in a new browser tab.
If your server does not start immediately, you can click the Send CtrlAltDel button in the top-right corner of the screen. When prompted, enter the username root and the password, which we created in the previous section:
From here, you will have complete access to your server.
Conclusion
If you are a Public Cloud Services customer, it is well worth your time to learn about VNC as it gives you an additional way to access an instance in a pseudo-KVM environment.