VNC under RedHat 8.0 (was RE: Linux VNC Newbie Question)
Justin Fields
JFields@garsonlaw.com
Wed Dec 11 16:02:00 2002
I actually just got it working, using a clue Michael gave. I logged out of
Gnome, then brought back up a command-line (fail-safe mode) RedHat session.
>From there, I could connect via VNC from my Windows box and everything runs
fine, using Gnome. This appears to avoid the problem of multiple Gnome
sessions running concurrently.
It isn't a big deal to me whether I can run multiple graphical sessions
simultaneously. It would be nice, but not essential. My Linux application is
really pretty moderate at this point. All I'm trying to do is get Linux up
and running on 7 boxes, then install and configure Samba, so I can run them
as Windows-compatible fileservers. My hope is that once they are set up,
they should be pretty stable and low-maintenance.
Where my desire for VNC came in was sheer laziness. Who wants to get up and
walk over to the server room and work on a KVM, when I could do it all from
my desk? In typical IT fashion, I'd rather bang my head against a wall for a
brief while and figure out how to insure my perpetual slackerness
thereafter. ;-)
Justin
-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly F. Hickel [mailto:kfh@mqsoftware.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 10:04 AM
To: Justin Fields; Michael Milette
Cc: vnc-list@realvnc.com
Subject: RE: VNC under RedHat 8.0 (was RE: Linux VNC Newbie Question)
You need to make sure that you are properly setting the DISPLAY
environment variable in your shells. I've seen a lot of people write
"export DISPLAY=localhost:0" in their .cshrc/.bash_profile/.profile/etc.
This is fine if you're always logged into the console (:0), but now your
display is :9, so you need to do "export DISPLAY=localhost:9".
Kelly F. Hickel
Senior Software Architect
MQSoftware, Inc
952.345.8677
kfh@mqsoftware.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Fields [mailto:JFields@garsonlaw.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 8:49 AM
To: 'Michael Milette'
Cc: 'vnc-list@realvnc.com'
Subject: RE: VNC under RedHat 8.0 (was RE: Linux VNC Newbie Question)
When I chose VNC in the initial install, only the viewer was installed.
Same
as you. I went back and added the server component from CD #3 by
selecting
the server package and installing it.
I followed your instructions on the file change in .vnc/xstartup. I ran
vncserver, specifying a display number. For example:
vncserver : 9
That will make the display number 9, then I can connect to it from my
Windows machine by connecting to 'IPADDRESS:9'. Specifying the display
number means that you don't have to see what VNCServer made as it
increments
upward. That worked fine, and this time, I got the Gnome desktop.
Hooray!
But.... when I go through the VNC connection and open a file or try to
view
something with gedit, it comes up on the Linux box, but not via the VNC
connection. Argh!
So close....
Thanks for the help. I'm gradually getting this stuff. The problem is
that
I'm brand new to Linux, as well as dealing with the VNC issues.
Justin
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Milette [mailto:tng@cyberus.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 5:08 PM
To: Justin Fields; 'Tim Waugh'
Cc: 'vnc-list@realvnc.com'
Subject: VNC under RedHat 8.0 (was RE: Linux VNC Newbie Question)
I just went though the exact same scenario today. I installed vnc using
the
Add Remove Packages tool first. After many unsuccessful attempts at
trying
to figure out how to run vncserver from the command line, I gave up and
decided that only vncviewer must have been installed with RH 8.0 and not
necessarily the server. So I un-installed it, downloaded and installed
the
latest TightVNC rpm instead (yes, I know it is only recommended for RH
Linux versions up to 7.x).
The only way I could get it to work though was to edit the .vnc/xstartup
file and replace the last line:
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
...with the following two lines:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
gnome-session &
A few notes:
- I have no idea why xinitrc doesn't work.
- This assumes you want to run the gnome session manager. You need the
unset line because gnome-session doesn't appear to like being run in two
places at the same time. This seems to get around the problem. It's not
pretty but it works. As a result, you will see the occasional error
message
appear in the log files and in the remote session. This is most likely
due
to the fact that I obviously am running blind and haven't any clue as to
what I am doing (yet!). However it does work well enough to enable me to
push forward and learn more. Maybe one day I might even have a clue of
what
I am doing.
- If you prefer KDE, use "startkde &" instead of the gnome-session line.
You might not need the unset line either with KDE. Of course you should
install KDE first as it doesn't come installed by default in RH 8.0.
- The xstartup file appears to be read or run (not sure) when you run
vncserver from the command line. So if you make a change to the file,
you
will need to stop your vncserver and then restart it again for the
changes
to take effect. This by itself had me going for a while. It seemed that
no
matter what I did, it never had any effect.
- The display number seems to always start at 1, unlike the Windows
server
which starts at 0 by default. So you will need to add the :1 when
running
the vncviewer. Actually, it is probably best to take note of the
"display"
number when you start up the vncserver.
- I am assuming you have figured out that you need to run
vncserver -kill :displaynumber
...to stop a vncserver. If not, now you do.
- I haven't figured out how to do remote screen takeover of the
currently
running gnome console session. The above information will start a new
gnome
session. If anyone has a suggestion or two on how to do this (to enable
me
to do remote user support), it would be appreciated.
By the way, does anyone know if it is possible to disable the wallpaper
like WinVNC does when you connect?
I am still learning about Linux. Please don't flame me if I am doing
something dumb. However if anyone has some suggestions on how to do it
better, I would very much appreciate hearing from them.
TIP: You can use "gedit" to edit the file. It is much easier to use and
I
never did get the hang of vi.
Hope it helps a little...
Michael Milette
At 12:28 PM 2002-12-10, Justin Fields wrote:
>Tim,
>
>I saw that VNC came as an installable Redhat package, but (perhaps
>mistakenly) wanted to make sure I had the most up to date version. So I
did
>deselect the VNC option and go from scratch. Silly me.
>
>On an entirely separate machine, I installed RedHat 8, this time, with
the
>VNC option. I got both the viewer and server installed. It took awhile
for
>me to find out how to view all the hidden files, but I have that
>accomplished now. I checked the .vnc/xstartup file, and it looks
exactly
>like the one you gave me.
>
>I used the VNC viewer on my Windows box and managed to connect to the
new
>RedHat box using:
>
>IPADDRESS:1
>
>What I see at that point is a big dark grey screen with an X cursor I
can
>move around. The server machine has the graphical user interface, which
I'm
>looking to connect to.
>
>I must still be missing something, or misunderstanding something.
>
>Thanks for the fast and helpful reply.
>
>Justin
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Tim Waugh [mailto:twaugh@redhat.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 8:22 AM
>To: Justin Fields
>Cc: 'vnc-list@realvnc.com'
>Subject: Re: Linux VNC Newbie Question
>
>
>On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 07:46:49AM -0500, Justin Fields wrote:
>
> > I got a fresh download of VNC installed on one of the new
> > machines,
>
>That was your mistake. :-)
>
>As shipped, Red Hat Linux 8.0 comes with VNC, complete with a default
>configuration to use the Bluecurve theme. You just had to run
>'vncserver', and be done.
>
>The magic bit of configuration is in .vnc/xstartup. Change it to
>this:
>
>-->
>#!/bin/sh
>
># Red Hat Linux VNC session startup script
>exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
><--
>
>Tim.
>*/
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