[users] tightvnc server fails to start

[Robert Moskowitz]

I did some more testing, skip to the end...

Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> I tried to use tightvnc back in August and had some help, but I 
> stopped due to IPv6 support. Now I am back at tightvnc and cannot get 
> the server started. This is on a new Centos install that did have 
> regular vncserver working on it (I did a yum erase vnc-server first).
>
> So I have a working /etc/sysconfig/vncserver and my user has the 
> appropriate ~/.vnc files that worked with regular vnc.
>
> Logged in as root, I issue: service vncserver start
>
> and get:
>
> Starting TightVNC remote administration daemon (Xvnc):2:root WARNING: 
> initlog is deprecated and will be removed in a future
> vncserver: The USER environment variable is not set.
> [FAILED]
>
>
>
> But there is a USER environment variable set:
>
> set|grep USER
>
> PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne 
> "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}"; echo -ne "\007"'
> USER=root
>
> (remember, I am logged in as root so I can issue the service command)
>
> And further in /etc/profile I have:
>
> if [ -x /usr/bin/id ]; then
> USER="`id -un`"
> LOGNAME=$USER
> MAIL="/var/spool/mail/$USER"
> fi
>
>
>
> The only line in the /etc/sysconfig/vncservers is:
>
> VNCSERVERS="2:user"
>
> where user is the userid.

Actually in this case userid is root.

Yes, I am allowing root login via VNC. This is a test server on a closed
test network.

If I try userid foo I get font problems. This I learned a few months ago
to fix with:

cd /usr/X11R6/
mkdir lib
cd lib
ln -s /usr/share/X11


So, anyway, why the problem with root? regular VNC does not have this
problem.