How to start a VNC session with multiple monitor

Question

The work in my lab requires dual monitor (well I can live with only one monitor, but I will have to constantly switching between windows).

A headless server (no monitor) is running CentOS 6 64 bit GNOME, with Tiger VNC server version 1.1.0-16.el6.x86_64.

My question is, is there a way that I can start a VNC session with dual monitor? Currently the /etc/sysconfig/vncservers file looks like this

VNCSERVERS="3:username"
VNCSERVERARGS[3]="-geometry 1920x1080 -geometry 1920x1200 -geometry 2560x1440 -geometry 3840x1080 -nolisten tcp -localhost"

Note that the -geometry 3840x1080 option will create one wide screen, but it is not as convenient as two 1080p screens.

I am open to RealVNC or other VNC servers.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I used TightVNC a lot at my last job, and most VNC solutions are based off of the open VNC standard.

With the way VNC works and what you want to do, the only way to get this done is to set the geometry as you stated to support a large horizontal resolution. You can't separate the monitors because VNC has no concept of a 'separate' monitor. Furthermore, the remote computer needs to have dual monitors or better hooked up to it in order for this to work. A headless display will be treated as one monitor unless you configure it differently in the VNC Server settings.

Most programs treat dual monitors as being one huge display with a large horizontal resolution, including Windows; there's extra programming involved to get the behavior to appear as two different windows. For example, this is why Windows records dual monitors as one picture when you take a fullscreen screenshot.

One program that can do what you want is Teamviewer. There is a Linux version available that supports CentOS.

More information here: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/linux/