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Guacamole + Ubuntu Maverick: Step by step

VNC server

  1. Install a VNC server. I suggest vnc4server.
    sudo apt-get install vnc4server
     
  2. Create the file ~/.vnc/xstartup. Paste in the following (this will set up the x server and start gnome-session to give you your desktop and panels and such):
    #!/bin/sh

    xrdb $home/.xresources
    xsetroot -solid black
    gnome-session &

  3. Start the vnc server. Change the resolution if necessary; this is what I used so it would display nicely on my Cr-48:
    vnc4server -geometry 1260x650 -depth 24
     It will prompt you for a password the first time if you have never run vnc before. You should set one up, especially if you're not firewalling port 5900-5910. Remember what screen it says it has started on for later. It's usually screen 1.

Tomcat

Don't use the version of tomcat in the Ubuntu repos. It is very broken.
  1. Download Tomcat 6.x from the website. Get the .tar.gz file under "Core".
  2. Untar the file.
    tar xvzf apache-tomcat-6.0.32.tar.gz
     
  3. Move it to someplace nice. I used /opt/tomcat. It's whatever you want though.
    sudo mv apache-tomcat-6.0.32/ /opt/tomcat
     
  4. Generate SSL keys for tomcat. More info here.
    keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

    This will ask you several questions. It will also prompt you for a password. You won't have to memorize this password, so you can use a random one. Use the same password for the keystore and the key. You'll enter it in the next step...
  5. Edit the /opt/tomcat/conf/server.xml with your favorite text editor. Add to the bottom (and change the bolded things to be correct):
    <Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true" keystoreFile="/home/username/.keystore" keystorePass="keystore password" maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true" clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" />

Guacamole

  1. Download Guacamole. (The .tar.gz, if there are choices)
  2. Untar it:
    tar xvzf guacamole-0.2.6.tar.gz
     
  3. Spread the files through your system:
    cd guacamole-0.2.6
    sudo mkdir /var/lib/guacamole/
    sudo mv guacamole.war /var/lib/guacamole/
    mv guacamole-users.xml /opt/tomcat/conf/
    mv guacamole.xml /opt/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/

  4. Edit the username and password in /opt/tomcat/conf/guacamole-users.xml. You'll use these to log in later, so use something you know.
  5. Edit /opt/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/guacamole.xml. Change the port from 5900 to 5900 + screen number (from before) (so probably 5901). Uncomment the line with the password tag and add in your password.
  6. Start tomcat.
    /opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
     
  7. Go to http://localhost:8443/guacamole in your favorite modern browser.

That should do it. You'll have to re run the vnc server and tomcat startup script if you ever reboot. Getting those to run automatically on startup is left as an exercise to the reader.