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I have an old laptop (linux mint xfce) I use for a VNC viewer connected to the Pi 4.

This gives a significant performance improvement and access to the latest 64bit s/w.

Is there a way to make this secure? otherwise any else on the local network can also access the pi?

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    I've edited your question to keep it on topic here. Questions about the laptop itself, and improving the boot time of linux systems belong on our larger sibling site, Unix & Linux.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented Jan 22, 2022 at 16:00
  • WRT securing this, you could use an ethernet cable to connect the Pi and the laptop. If the laptop is really 20 years old, this will be faster than any wifi it has and less prone to LAN fluctuations. If you restrict VPN connections to only the ethernet interface, then no one else can try to use it.
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented Jan 22, 2022 at 16:04

1 Answer 1

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In Pi

Set up the VNC server to accept connection from 127.0.0.1 only. This IP address always refer to the computer (in this case the Pi) itself. No device other than the Pi can access the VNC server.

Set up ssh server. For maximum security enable public key based login in ssh and disable password based login.

In Laptop

Set up ssh tunneling to the Pi in your VNC client software like Remmina.

See https://askubuntu.com/questions/1206883/how-to-prevent-x11vnc-attacks-attempts-to-unauthorized-logins for details.

Bonus Point

If you don't need to access the internet from both the Pi and the laptop, disable WiFi in both and use an Ethernet cable to connect the two.

Since neither the Pi nor the laptop has a DHCP server installed, you will need to assign static IP addresses to both of them.

Hope this helps

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    I do need access to the internet, but only from the Pi. I will try these asap as they look as though they will resolve my problems.
    – Fredca
    Commented Jan 23, 2022 at 16:34

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