Using VNC as Only X Server

[Brian Holt]

sorry for the reply delay...the mail server which holds my mail was down
due to a power outage til today.  i have to reboot it, and it is locked
away where i cant get at it without someone letting me into the building.
anyway, ill reply to both of you here. thanks to you both ahead of time
;-)

> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 18:34:43 +0000
> From: Simon Kelsall <simon "at" malbo.demon.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Using VNC as Only X Server
> 
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2000 11:04:03 -0600, you wrote:
> 
> >  So, what I would like to set up is to have the VNC server run=20
> >as the X server for the 5th runlevel (which means people log in thru the=
>  GUI,=20
> >using VNC in this case.) =20
> 
> I do something similar on my server box which sits under the desk with
> no keyboard or monitor.
> 
> The best way is to use iXvnc from the contributed page.
> http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/~andre/extern/ixvnc.htm

i'll look into that

> 
> Alternatively edit the file /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers to read:
> 
> :0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvnc -geometry 800x600 16
> 
> obviously use your own path and options. But this way only 1 person
> can log on at a time.

actually, that is fine for right now.  i will probably try both and see
which works better.  thanks

> 
> Simon.
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 20:18:39 +0000
> From: Todd Jordan <tcjordan "at" technologist.com>
> Subject: Re: Using VNC as Only X Server
> 
> Just run the vncserver at reboot.
> 
> 1) Write a quick script that is simply the command to run the vncserver and put it
> in /etc/rc.d/initd. (i.e. called: runvnc).
> 2) In /etc/rc5.d/ create a symbolic link that points to your script. ('ln -s
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/runvnc S95runvnc'). Take a look at the other links in that
> directory. Notice, the numbers at the beginning are K/S (kernel or service?) and a

i think K means kill and S means start.  i think that when switching
runlevels (with the telinit commend for instance) init will issue a
'command stop' command to each of the ones with K slinks, and then issue a
'command start' to the ones with S slinks.

thats what i read somewhere, anyway.

> number. This indicates the order in which the servers are supposed to be started. On
> my RH system my local config is run at S99local.
> 
> You can get fancier with your script and do a start, stop, restart, etc. see some of
> the other scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d for examples.
> 
> The other option is to just put the vncserver run line in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, but
> then it runs in every run level.
> 
> Your choice.

the problem with these two solutions is that VNC (and thus, the X server)
would run as root.  this is generally considered A Bad Thing (tm), right?
i mean, it is generally setup so you cant telnet in as root, but all you
would need here is one password to break in.  it would be harder if you
had to get in thru another username first.  thanks though.

Brian Holt



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