How Can I connect to Amazon Linux instance using Remote Desktop from Windows 7?

Question

I created an EC2 Amazon Linux instance (yes, an amazon version of linux..)

it is launched but I can't connect using Remote Desktop...

am I trying to do something crazy here?

I got a message that Remote Computer is not available on the network

Answer 1

If you mean Windows RDP (Remote Desktop) that is your problem. Most likely you will need to use an SSH client to connect. I suggest Putty.

You should've received an SSH key when you setup your server. You will need to convert that key using PuttyGEN (same page as the Putty download) to convert it then use it with Putty to access the server.

Trying to walk you through the process of installing a GUI and VNC on the server is a bit much for here but give this video a shot. It seems pretty thorough and from skipping through it I saw no obvious errors in his process.

Answer 2

Try installing the vnc4server package. Then you can use a client such as TightVNC to connect from a Windows machine. You'll also need to open up port number 5900 in your firewall, which is the default for VNC.

You'll also have to have a desktop environment installed on your EC2 instance - by default you may only have the server packages which will not give you a GUI.