How to access Amazon AMI ec2 instance in GUI

Question

I am having an Amazon Linux AMI 2013.03.1 (64 bit) ec2 instance, I am accessing it using putty by providing the ppk file and ip address. But it connects me to the terminal, is there any way I can access it with GUI ?

Answer 1

Very brief answer. It is not amazon linux specific because I don't use it but should give you enough hints because it is Red Hat based AFAIK.

Basically you need to install the GUI you want to use (xfce, gnome, kde, etc.) and vnc server. try yum search vnc and yum search gnome to find out what packages do you need to install.

You then start vnc server on the machine. You do the above through command line console. If it works for you you may make VNC start with machine boot.

I don't know which tutorial is good for putty port forwarding because not using windows but this looks promising to me: http://martybugs.net/smoothwall/puttyvnc.cgi

With linux (perhaps if you install cygwin on your windows that will be possible for you as well) one usually can start a remote vnc session with automatic port forwarding like: vncviewer -via <machine you try to connect> <screen number, usually :1>