Connect to VNC using TigerVNC Viewer through an SSH tunnel. OS X only.

vncssh.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Connecto to VNC using TigerVNC Viewer through an SSH tunnel. OS X only.
# Requires osx_app_path: https://github.com/shello/osx_app_path
# Tested with bash 3.2 and zsh 5.1.1

vncssh () {
  local SSH_HOST VNC_PORT LOCAL_PORT TIGERVNC
  local TIGERVNC_BIN="Contents/MacOS/TigerVNC Viewer"

  SSH_HOST="$1"
  if [[ -z "$SSH_HOST" ]]; then
    printf "Usage: %s <ssh-host> [remote-vnc-port]\n" "$0" >&2
    return 1
  fi

  VNC_PORT=${2:-5900}
  if [[ ($VNC_PORT -lt 1) || ($VNC_PORT -gt 65535) ]]; then
    printf "Invalid VNC port %s: must be an integer between 1 and 65535.\n" \
      "$VNC_PORT" >&2
    return 1
  fi

  TIGERVNC="$(osx_app_path -b "com.tigervnc.tigervnc")/$TIGERVNC_BIN"
  if [[ ! -x "$TIGERVNC" ]]; then
    printf "TigerVNC Viewer app not found" >&2
    return 1
  fi

  LOCAL_PORT=$((59000 + RANDOM % 1000))

  # "Auto-closing" tunnel
  ssh "$SSH_HOST" -f -L${LOCAL_PORT}:localhost:"$VNC_PORT" "sleep 2"

  "$TIGERVNC" "localhost:${LOCAL_PORT}:0.0"
}

# Run if not being sourced
if [[ "$BASH_SOURCE" == "$0" ]]; then
  vncssh "$@"
fi