Why does the RealVNC Server notification icon not appear on Linux?

When using RealVNC Server on newer Linux distributions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8+ and Rocky Linux 8+, the RealVNC Server notification icon will not be available without additional setup.

This is because these distributions use a version of GNOME Shell (>=3.26) that no longer supports legacy tray icons. To restore tray icons functionality, please follow these steps:

1. Install the AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support GNOME Shell extension, following the on-screen instructions
2. Enable the extension using the GNOME Tweaks (gnome-tweaks) application, or GNOME Extensions website/application

If the RealVNC Server icon does not appear after enabling the GNOME extension, you may need to install the libappindicator package by running the appropriate command for your Linux distribution, below,

Ubuntu

sudo apt install libappindicator3-1

RHEL/Rocky Linux

sudo yum install libappindicator-gtk3