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I need to use OpenGL on a remote Win 10 computer so can't use RDP. I also need a secure connection so VNC over SSH looks like a good solution.

So far I've installed and configured OpenSSH and TightVNC servers on the remote Windows computer. I've confirmed TightVNC server is listening on port 5900.

I then followed this guide to configure PuTTy with port tunneling.

I've also set AllowTcpForwarding yes in sshd_config on the remote computer.

I can successfully connect/login to the remote Windows computer using PuTTy with tunneling setup for port 5900.

But when I try to connect to 127.0.0.1::5900 or localhost:5900 in the TightVNC viewer it fails to connect giving "Connection has been gracefully closed" error.

What am I missing?

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2 Answers 2

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Got it working, I was entering the IP I wanted to tunnel to in PuTTy tunnel config not 127.0.0.1. I don't know why this works, some docs say to use 127.0.0.1 and other say to use the IP of the remote machine.

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I was hitting the same error message.

But in my case it was not just a matter of Putty configuration, but also Windows 10 OpenSSH server and TightVNC server configurations.

So I share all of them just in case somebody else is having the same problem:

** Remote Windows 10 OpenSSH server configuration (see links below if you wish to change your server port). These are some directives I changed in the OpenSSH config file (%programdata%\ssh\sshd_config):

PermitTunnel yes # default: no
AllowTcpForwarding yes # default: no

** Remote Windows 10 TightVNC server configuration:

"Access control" tab menu entry, "Loopback Connections" section: Tickbox "Allow loopback connections" yes (default: no)

** Local Putty configuration:

Left menu: Session Host name (or IP address) and port: use IP and OpenSSH server port of your remote Windows 10 (in my case, lets say they are 8.8.8.8 / 22).

Left menu: Connection - SSH - Tunnels. I added these entries:

Source port: 5908 (the local port you will use to enter the tunnel)

Destination: 127.0.0.1:5900 (the port your remote TightVNC server is listening)

These two ports do not need to be identical. In my case I preferred to use 5908 source port (just to remember it tunnels to my remote server at 8.8.8.8).

With the above configuration, my VNC client can access the server connecting to:

127.0.0.1:5908

I also read these links regarding OpenSSH server configuration in Windows 10:

Installation: https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2020/05/21/ssh-server-on-windows-10.aspx

Configuration: How to change ssh port on windows 10?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/openssh/openssh_install_firstuse

Tunneling: http://woshub.com/ssh-tunnel-port-forward-windows/

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