HOWTO: Set up VNC server with resumable sessions

[kharyett]

This is a great Howto. It worked great after I ironed out a stupidity issue.

Word of advice:
If you have the root accound enabled with a password, DO NOT set the vnc server passwrod the same as your root password, otherwise, the sessions will not work, and it will chown .ICEauthority to root ownership and lock you out of any gdm sessions except for the one you are currently logged into. After loging out, you will be locked out till you chown the .ICEauthority file back to your usernames ownership.

Like I said, stupidity issue. Time to change that password...

[Tichondrius]

Having the root account enabled is not a good idea, and it's even worse to log in to GDM as root. To perform system maintenance, you should log in as a user with administrator privileges (not root) and use sudo. If typing in your password every time you use sudo is too much of a hassle, you can edit /etc/sudoers file and change the admin line to read:

%admin  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Or follow this howto in the guide:

http://easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu#Ho...8not_secure.29

[_kk]

Hey guys.

I really hope someone will help me out here. I've read this guide many many times by now and I'm getting alot of the same errors as others here. I'm at the point where I can start the Xvnc by hand and that works great but now I need to get 'xinetd' to start it for me as I understand.

When I sudo netstat -tap | grep xinetd I get:
tcp 0 0 *:5901 *:* LISTEN 6885/xinetd

and when I try vncviewer localhost:1 I get this:
ReadFromRFBServer: rdr::SystemException read: Connection reset by peer(104)

I've checked the log: grep xinetd /var/log/syslog and I get the same as others has described:
Jan 28 08:29:57 localhost xinetd[14186]: warning: can't get client address: Transport endpoint is not connected
Jan 28 08:29:57 localhost xinetd[14187]: warning: can't get client address: Transport endpoint is not connected
Jan 28 08:29:57 localhost xinetd[10673]: Deactivating service Xvnc due to excessive incoming connections. Restarting in 10 seconds.

I've really double checked everything and have no idea where to go now. I've used vnc a great deal on windows but linux is all new to me

Where do I go from here?

kk,
installed ubuntu yesterday

[Tichondrius]

Repeat steps 5 and 6

[_kk]

Repeat steps 5 and 6

Ok, in step 5 it says:

Stopping the internet superserver: xinetd.
Xvnc: no process killed
Starting internet superserver: xinetd.

In step 6 I get:

ReadFromRFBServer: rdr::SystemException read: Connection reset by peer(104)

Update: Something has changed since yesterday. Now when I start the server manually and connect to it all I see is a blank screen. It's like a giant chess board with black and white pixels. Also the cursor changes into a big X - nevermind, XDMCP was disabled.

[kharyett]

Having the root account enabled is not a good idea, and it's even worse to log in to GDM as root. To perform system maintenance, you should log in as a user with administrator privileges (not root) and use sudo. If typing in your password every time you use sudo is too much of a hassle, you can edit /etc/sudoers file and change the admin line to read:

I know that having root with a passwrod is not a good idea for most people, but I have it enabled for a few good reasons which are irrelleavent here.

I don't allow a GDM or remote login by root anywhere besides console. And my sudo user is not allowed a remote login, only console and gdm. The console is locked up and accessable by only me.

Now, back to the conversation about VNC.

I wonder what kind of load it would be on the system to have a server setup like a terminal server for many users. Hmmmm.... I see possibilities here. I wonder how many would be too many... Time to start something over in the Server Talk forum...

[simon0t7]

hm... I can login remotely via VNC, but when I'm at the actual machine my login no longer works.... am I missing a step here?

[kharyett]

hm... I can login remotely via VNC, but when I'm at the actual machine my login no longer works.... am I missing a step here?

Do you get an error in the GDM when you try to logon? If it does, login to the console and check the ownership of the .ICEauthority file in your home directory.

If there is no error, can you still login to the console?

[simon0t7]

it tells me my password or login is incorrect. I can log in fine via console from putty.


-rw------- 1 simon simon 787 Feb 25 11:50 .ICEauthority


That's the output for .ICEauthority, is it correct?

[kharyett]

That looks good.
Check to see if any files in your home directory have suddenly changed to root ownership. If any have, let us know which ones. If none have, try the following:

sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd stop

sudo killall Xvnc

sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd start

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

That will kill the xinet daemon, kill all Xvnc processes, restart xinet daemon and restart the GDM. See if that lets you login again.

When I screwed up with the root password, after I reclaimed ownership of the file, I had to do the above steps before I could login on the console GDM.

I have had a few quirks since then, but luckily I have ssh access for remote logins setup. Even if the console goes kerblewey, I can still use the SSH login... And yes, it happened that the keyboard was not accessable due to a motherboard port failure. SSH allowed me to get in and shut it down cleanly so I could changed the motherboard.

See if that helps.