How to copy/paste text from remote system?

I used to access a remote system via VNC viewer, but when I copy some text from the remote system and paste it in my text editor(local system), nothing happens. Do I need to install any additional packages to achieve this task?

Updates:
There is no such option found in the Real VNC properties.

Screenshot

I just get the following output:

karthick@karthick:~$ vncconfig
No VNC extension on display :0.0

Updated:

karthick@karthick:~$ vncserver
Warning: karthick:1 is taken because of /tmp/.X1-lock
Remove this file if there is no X server karthick:1
Warning: karthick:2 is taken because of /tmp/.X2-lock
Remove this file if there is no X server karthick:2
New 'X' desktop is karthick:4
Starting applications specified in /home/karthick/.vnc/xstartup
Log file is /home/karthick/.vnc/karthick:4.log
karthick@karthick:~$ vncconfig -display :1
vncconfig: unable to open display ":1"

enter image description here

4

16 Answers

There will be a .vnc directory in your home folder. In this directory there will be few files named like <computer name>:<number>.extension
For example my laptop contains following two files in .vnc directory.

adnan-laptop:1.log
adnan-laptop:1.pid

The :1 in the above file names shows that the vnc server is running on display :1.

Now connect to your VNC server and from the connected session run vncconfig as follows:

vncconfig -display :1 

This will show a small window with clipboard related options. Check all the options and dont close the window. Now you should be able to copy paste from/to remote system.

9
  1. Install:

    sudo apt-get install autocutsel
  2. Run vi /home/b37399/.vnc/xstartup and add this line:

    autocutsel -fork

    like this:

    #!/bin/bash
    xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
    autocutsel -fork
    startxfce4 & 
  3. Restart vncserver

5

I use the following line in my login-script:

vncconfig -nowin&

Hope it works for you!?

1

It depends on the VNC client that you are using. If you are using RealVNC then open the VNC Viewer Properties dialog and, on the Inputs tab, turn on Share clipboard with VNC Server.

UPDATE:
Try this. Connect using vncviewer and run vncconfig within the remote window, check the options regarding the clipboard and then try.
enter image description here

11

I use Remote login with vnc-ltsp-config with GNOME Desktop Environment on CentOS 5.9. From experimenting today, I managed to get cut and paste working for the session and the login prompt (because I'm lazy and would rather cut and paste difficult passwords).

  1. Created a file vncconfig.desktop in the /etc/xdg/autostart directory which enabled cut and paste during the session after login. The vncconfig process is run as the logged in user.

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=No name
    Encoding=UTF-8
    Version=1.0
    Exec=vncconfig -nowin
    X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

  2. Added vncconfig -nowin & to the bottom of the file /etc/gdm/Init/Desktop which enabled cut and paste in the session during login but terminates after login. The vncconfig process is run as root.

  3. Adding vncconfig -nowin & to the bottom of the file /etc/gdm/PostLogin/Desktop also enabled cut and paste during the session after login. The vncconfig process is run as root however.

2

I tried all the above suggestions with no luck.

I eventually solved it by replacing the vnc server from tightvncserver to vnc4server

On any manner, make sure that under ~/.vnc/xstartup you have the line

vncconfig -iconic &
1

Try using or pastebin.com .
They offer simple to use clipboard capability.

Using tightvnc (with the command: vncviewer) on Puppy Linux, I have to press F8 in the remote window to bring up the VNC menu. The VNC menu has entries for "Clipboard: local -> remote" and "Clipboard: local <- remote". I have to copy some text, use either of those entries, and then paste on the other system. I don't know if this is related to your particular problem, but it does behave like the symptoms you described if I don't use the menu.

2

In a new terminal window, I used the command vncconfig, the command keeps running and you can use the copy and paste functions in other windows or terminals.

The VNC viewer you are using has to support this feature otherwise you're just copying it localy on the remote system.

One more cause for this is multiple instances of vncconfig instances running conflicting with each other. In my case i had custom vncserver setup, but the vncconfig started as part of the system boot conflicted with the custom vncconfig setting.

To resolve this kill unwanted vncconfig instances running.

To get the list of vncconfig instances currently running:

ps -ef | grep vncconfig

To kill :

kill -9 <process_id>

Some commentary on your problem: RealVNC's is proprietary and it's clipboard support may be entirely incompatible with tightvncserver. I've used both, together, in the past but I don't remember 100% if clipboard sharing worked bettween them. I do know for sure that RealVNC-server paired with RealVNC-viewer did accommodate clipboard sharing; but RealVNC-server is not free (as in $$s)

You might try:

  • tightvnc viewer from It might be more compatible with whatever method tightvncserver used to share the clipboard.

  • or, perhaps you could go with an alternate protocol, ie NX (nxserver/nxclient ... some info at: ). Clipboard sharing worked for me on that without any custom settings.

enter code hereThis below config works perfectly fine for Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
Please freshly copy-paste/replace the below config to ~/.vnc/xstartup and restart your vnc. It will definitely work.
_____________________________________
#!/bin/sh
# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
# unset SESSION_MANAGER
# exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
autocutsel -fork
vncconfig -iconic &
vncconfig -nowin &
x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
x-window-manager &
gnome-panel &
gnome-settings-daemon &
metacity &
nautilus &

The only way I could fix this is to install clipIt.

Without ClipIt, I could only paste from VNC client to Console.

ClipIt took care of copying clipboard information to the GDE3 clipboard, so that I could do an insert in Terminal for example.

For me, I have tried all the solutions above but none worked. The real solution for me is to kill the process klipper. Not sure why but this process is the root cause of preventing me from copy and paste from windows to VNC.

ps aux|grep klipper
kill -9 <klipper_pid>

Different vncservers locate their configurations in different directories. In case you can't change your configuration despite adding autocutsel -fork in ~/.vnc/xstartup, you could also probably run find if /etc/X11/Xsession exist, if so, you can simply add autocutsel -fork and restart your vnc session. It works for me.

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