about VARIOUS COMMON CONNECTION PROBLEMS: "Connection closed by remote host." - you are likely in hosts.deny - ssh to another host and then to the target machine, then rm yrself from hosts.deny about FIREWALLD: firewall-cmd --get-active-zones --get-zones --list-all-zones --zone=<zone> --list-all --get-default-zone --set-default-zone <zone> --change-interface=<iface> --zone=<zone> --permanent # MANDATORY if you want your changes to survive thru reboot, except set-default-zone -- that's always permanent about NETSTAT: yum install -y net-tools netstat -tlpn about VNC: you can set vnc's $HOME in .vnc/xstartup