How to turn your box into a Xvnc Terminal Server

elec999 · n00b Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Posts: 39

Im having trouble with these two, can someone help me plz
5) Configure kdm
if you use kdm, edit /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc and enable XDMCP on port 177
Theres no /etc/kde/...

6) Configure gdm
if you use gdm, start gdmconfig and go the tab "XDCMP"
Make sure 'Enable XDMCP' is checked
The command start gdmconfig doesnt work
I am using xdm. Is there any other changes to make in it except the ! infront of the display.

elec999 · n00b Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Posts: 39

for me the vnc works, but only the backround and X sign is there, nothing else, what can be wrong. I have tried doing what was said, remove the Xsession, but still nothing. Heres a pic
[url]members.rogers.com/alex1002/terminals/vncts.JPG[/url]

buckoven · n00b Joined: 24 May 2003 Posts: 34

one of best howtos ever! working straight out of the box, took me 15 minutes to apply the xvnc-terminalserver.
thx!

martincab · n00b Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 1

Thank you guys!, you save me a lot of time. I'll use this to replace our current w2k ts server. It seems it will be a very good choice (and cheaper )

)

silentbob · Apprentice Joined: 09 Nov 2003 Posts: 159 Location: UK

tnkrtrn · n00b Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 19

Great tutorial guys. I got this working with no problem. Heck I did a google and looked for an alternative for windows terminal server and it brought me here. I didn't even know that gentoo existed before this. Two quick questions. First one is probably simple. I've noticed you guys talk about sshing into your gentoo box. I saw the tutorial to putty's ssh and read up on it. Sounds pretty straight forward except for one part. How do I setup ssh (and configure) on gentoo. Second question if I log in as Bob and then terminate my vnc session (by choice or accident) I see all the programs that were running are not. Anyway around that.

passenger 57 · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2003 Posts: 29 Location: Stuttgart

i tried it and it work fine

a german user
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nuance9 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Sep 2002 Posts: 85

I was able to set this up fine. I did get the blank screen and X cursor until I rebooted. That solved it.

Just one question, how do I enable GLX for the remote X sessions?

Thanks!

linbox · n00b Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 41

in number 5) Configure kdm
if you use kdm, edit /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc and enable XDMCP on port 177

I use KDE 3.2 and after several trials to logon and always getting the gray screen I finally found my problem when I went to the tutorial I could not find the file kdmrc in /etc/kde/kdm so I created it, which did NOT solve the issue. After looking around some more I found the file in
/usr/kde/3.2/share/config/kdm

So maybe I can help somebody else being successful here. Now it works great I get the login screen just perfect!

Guenter

haruki_zaemon · Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 12:02 pm Post subject: tightvnc problems

I'm running openbox and tightvnc but some keystrokes (like alt+tab) aren't working inside the session, instead being captured by the host session instead. Any way to get around this? Or is it really a problem for the window manager?

andyjeffries · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 11:29 am Post subject:

Hey lines!

Just wanted to drop a quick not to say thanks for doing this howto.

Works a charm!!!

Andy
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zioponics · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2003 Posts: 65 Location: ClockLand

**** Grey Screen News ***************

Hello guys,

I was another victim of those "grey screen and nothing more".

To solve it I had to give a normal shell to the user nobody.
/bin/false ---> /bin/bash.

The first time it worked, I was also reading the XDMCP-HOWTO , and since they talk about strange problems between XDMCP and PPPoE, I had shutted down the rp-pppoe service.

Now it's working with or without PPPoE.
But the shell MUST be set to /bin/bash. (mind the LDAP thing)

If you have a defunct "su" owned by nobody (ps -aux), you have to reboot in order for shell change to work. (try to kill it, if you can!! :wink:

)

I hope this will help some **Grey Screen** victims...
Bye
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c4 · Guru Joined: 21 Feb 2004 Posts: 312 Location: Sweden

first of all, honors to lines for an excellent guide. I really enjoy my two new terminal boxes :wink:

thanks for the efforts!

I encountered some problems while getting them both up and running. The first box had a new fresh stage1 build just two days ago, and it worked out smoothly.. however the second box, with a couple months old install wouldn't work. No matter what I did, i kept on getting that dreadful grey screen.

I am using x11-base/xfree-4.3.0-r5 on both boxes, as the box from which I am connecting to the servers. Furthermore, all of my computers use xdm & openbox 3.

Now after checking all settings on the failing box, I dicided to just reinstall xfree, and now they all work great. Interesting enough there were a few minor patches added initially with the emerge of the x-server. It obviously did the trick, as I now can log in to both servers, and all configs are the same as before I re-emerged. So if all seems to fail, it might be worth the waiting and reinstall xfree.
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bc999 · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2004 Posts: 1

Hello

Got some troubles to connect through a firewall. Opened port 71 and forwarded to the XVNCServer. Can't Connect. If i connect from the LAN it works.
How exactly can i connect with ssh ?
I tried this,it works but is awesome slow:

ssh -X Hostname
vncviewer localhost

Any Ideas ?

outspoken · Guru Joined: 14 Feb 2004 Posts: 464 Location: orlando, fl

ok, ive had this running for a little bit now and its great. especially the bit that lets you select screen resolution simply by chaning what port you login to, thats brilliant.

my question is, can i resume a session like in ssh when i use screen? i'm wondering if there is either a way to make a session based on the pid, or possibly a program that acts like screen for xorg/xfree/xdm/etc?

thanks!

luser2 · Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:56 pm Post subject: Gnome icons

This tip was great.. to get gnome to work I had to put this in ~/.vnc/xstartup

#!/bin/sh
xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
unset SESSION_MANAGER
gnome-session &

I found those last 2 lines posted in another thread.

Now I have my gnome desktop! The only problem is that this also turns my gnome desktop icons (computer, home, trash) and the icons in nautilus into the generic sheet icon. If I kill the vncserver the icons pop back.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Jeremy_Z · l33t Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 671 Location: Shanghai

Great tip !

And those who are using .vnc/xstartup have done something wrong, xstartup is the srcipt that is read when you are launching vncserver.

Here we want to use gdm/kdm/xdm with XDMCP, are you sure you configured xdm correctly ?

And you must have it running on the "server".

tactless · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 4:06 pm Post subject:

VNC is a really beautiful solution... I use it in two ways:
1. Connect to my WinXP box (in the other room, to go to my IE-only school website)
2. Connect home from girlfriend's. I do it this by first connecting with putty to openssh, tunelling a VNC port through it, and running vncserver via ssh. Then I open a VNC viewer and connect through the tunnel. Only port 22 is open outbound

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tecknojunky · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 12:42 pm Post subject:

I've setup a new machine, but it's headless.

I did everything in this howto, but I end up with only the X grey screen.

Obviously, the problem is because gdm is not started. So I was searching where I could start gdm in the web of scripts that get called.

I was wondering if this chain would work:

- Replace Xvnc with gdm in the call made by xinetd;
- Replace X with Xvnc in the gdm.conf.

Somehow, I think it would not work... I did not try. I wish to have your input first before doing stupid things.
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Jeremy_Z · l33t Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 671 Location: Shanghai

Gdm is started by typing "gdm" as root on command line.
Then by configuring xdm and adding xdm with rc-update.

Also are you sure you edited correctly every conf file ?

tecknojunky · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 8:52 pm Post subject:

Jeremy_Z · l33t Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 671 Location: Shanghai

Well the whole point of this topic was to have gdm accepting remote connection via vnc. So you need to have gdm runing, that is for sure.

Now there might be a way to have gdm (or xdm) running without a X server, but this is a different issue and i cannot help you with that (if it is what you whant).
But a X instance is needed anyway on the server, even if you use vncserver it starts X.

tecknojunky · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 9:12 pm Post subject:

It is my understanding that inetd act as some sort of intermediary for all deamons. I don't know on which port gdm listen on, but whetever that is, conceptualy, I tought that inetd could get gdm started if a connection request on that port occurs.

So, if inted start gdm, then the next step would be insuring that gdm uses Xvnc instead of X. Am I making sense? Because I'm not sure I am

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Jeremy_Z · l33t Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 671 Location: Shanghai

Well, from /etc/services i got xdmcp working with port 177.

Currently xinetd is configured to start Xvnc but i dont know how it connects to gdm (xdmcp) then.

You might want to try to add gdm in xinetd with port 177 ...

tecknojunky · Posted: Thu May 06, 2004 9:28 pm Post subject:

... which brings us to my initial post :lol: