Up and Running with NX on RHEL

Over a period of time I’ve seen several folks run into issues trying to setup NX to be able to remotely access their Linux machines. So, I thought it might be a good idea to list down the steps here.

Following steps explain how you can setup free-nx server on Linux – for this post we use RedHat Enterprise Linux 6 – and then the NoMachine client on your Laptop/Desktop.

First, lets start by setting up the free-nx server on your Linux machine.

Install Dependencies

Login to your Linux machine. Start by installing expect, if you don’t have it installed already.

   # yum install expect

Download and install free-nx

   # wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/freenx-server-0.7.3-18.el6.x86_64.rpm
   # wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/nx-3.3.0-38.el6.x86_64.rpm

   # yum -y localinstall nx-3.3.0-38.el6.x86_64.rpm
   # yum -y localinstall freenx-server-0.7.3-18.el6.x86_64.rpm

Setting up NX

   # export PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin
   # /usr/libexec/nx/nxsetup --install

As mentioned here, you may have to add /usr/sbin to your PATH as “usermod” command (internally used by nxsetup) is located in /usr/sbin. For easier/quicker setup, use the defaults as you walk thru the prompts while running nxsetup.

Start the server (or confirm that it is running) using the following command

   # /usr/libexec/nx/nxserver --start

Now, Install the NoMachine client on your Laptop/Desktop.

Login to your client machine from where you need to remotely access the Linux host and Download the No Machine client for your platform from here. Clients are available for OS X, Windows, Linux, Android & iOS. Install, Launch the client and enter valid user credentials.

If you have trouble logging into your Linux machine, try the following:


  1. Change your client settings so that it uses NoMachine Login instead of the default System Login.

  2. NX writes to the user’s home directory. So if the user you are logging-in as has a HOME dir that is mounted upon login and that mounting fails, your nx login will not work.