This is a cool one, far better than just a vnc connection. Even better than an X11vnc connection. Head over to another tty, lets say tty2: (cntrl)(alt)f2. Login, and start another X session:
xinit -- :1
A minimal X session will start. Now login via ssh to your server. For example I login with this:
ssh -X -C 192.168.0.1
Where -X forwards the X session, -C uses compression, and 192.168.0.1 is an example IP address of a server. If your sever is hosting a website using a domain, you can point the ssh connection at the domain. Also I recommend using rsa keys for the ssh connection, as it prevents brute force password attacks. For more information check here:
http://www.bgevolution.com/blog/ssh-brute-force-protection/
After logged in via ssh start your Gnome desktop with:
gnome-session
Your desktop will start just as if you were sitting in front of your computer. Some things wont work like the notifications panel, because one is already launched on the server desktop. Other gnome panel applets may not launch, but your desktop overall will work.
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By default the Gnome frequency scaling applet does not vary the frequency of the CPU. If your computer supports frequency scaling then the gnome panel applet can server quite useful. The only requirement is to reconfigure the applet to operate with root permissions:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets
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Using gconf-editor navigate to applications - nautilus - desktop.
There are a couple of icons you can select to show on the desktop including “computer”, “home”, and “trash”.
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VirtualBox comes with the seamless mode option that can be enabled from the machine menu in a guest OS. If Microsoft Windows is the guest OS, and seamless mode is enabled, you will see the Windows taskbar above your Gnome or KDE task bar. You will not see the Windows desktop. Anything you run from the Windows taskbar will be in a window directly on your Linux desktop.
Seamless mode is for all practical purposes seamless. All your guest OS application are not run on a separate window, they are run in their own independent windows on the host OS desktop. It is truly a seamless blending of two operating system.
To enbale seamless mode with a hotkey, press your globally defined hotkey and “L”.
Take seamless mode to the next level (screenshot available)
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In the Debian repositories is sensors-applet. Its a Gnome panel application comparable to computertemp. Install with:
sudo apt-get install sensors-applet
Most likely this package is also in Ubuntu repositories, and possibly in further upstream distributions.
Once installed right click on your top gnome panel and select “Add to Panel”. Select “Hardware Sensors Monitor”, and a quaint icon will appear on your Gnome panel.
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Given that I am using Debian with a Gnome desktop, the default sessions manager does not allow for selective startup program priorities. In other words, there is no way to say which program is launched first. This is important with virtual servers using host networking; the bridge and tap must be fully setup before the virtual server is launched, otherwise the guest os will not recognize the tap and fails with an error.
I have posted previously about virtual server auto launch. To recap use the VBoxManage command:
VBoxmanage startvm servername
You can run this command automatically on boot by adding it to the sessions startup programs manager. This is also how to automatically run your host networking setup script.
Does anyone know how to autostart more than one guest os? I have both startup commands in the sessions manager, and the appropriate configuration in the host networking script. Overall two taps are available, with IP addresses at startup, but the second guest os never auto launches. I can only rationalize that the second guest os is being launched before the tap is fully configured, hence the issue with startup manager lacking a priority feature…
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The Gnome system monitor applet is an excellent graphical tool to determine relative system stability. You should enable this applet in your host operating system specifically if you are utilizing a virtual server environment. On your host system you need free RAM so that your guest OS will have free RAM to access. If your host OS is full, including the cache, it will cause system instability in your guest OS.
I have observed that my virtual server becomes unstable when the system cache completely consumes all available RAM. This is a result of a direct FTP or SSH connection, and is most likely a reasonably expected phenomena. While the caching feature allows for substantial speed improvement for FTP and SSH file transfers, the repercussion on virtual appliance stability is undersired. As posted previously, the simple resolution is to reboot the host system 
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