VNC is not working

Hallo,
after installing OpenSuse 11.2 (32Bit) I have two problems. One is, that the VNC in not working. The behavior is quite simple explained: After accessing from another machine with VNC-Viewer, the window is coming in the right size, but it remains black. There is no login-dialog opening. When looking in the messages it’s clear, the VNC is correctly working, but it’s not starting a KDE. This bug is well known in lots of forums but the solution is missing. :’( Does anybody really know a solution, or better a programmer can change this ?
Kind Greeeez, Klaus :wink:

Are you trying to access another openSUSE / Linux PC or Windows PC? I had no trouble with KRDC (KDE’s VNC viewer) accessing a XP desktop. I just set XP to allow remote desktop access then used KRDC through RDP to access the PC. It worked well. Check out this link.

However if you’re trying to get remote access to another openSUSE box using the Krfb server (KDE’s VNC server) then yes there is a bug. I tried all sorts of things to get it working but it just failed at the authentication every time. It’s a known bug and has been around for a while.

VNC as a server, serving up a KDE window to a client, has been problematic for all of the openSUZSE 11.x versions because VNC from KDE4 is problematic. The workarounds to get it going nicely with TightVNC in openSUSE 11.0 and 11.1 are detailed here:
TightVNC (VNC Xvnc) on openSUSE as Client or Server (Remote Desktop Connections)
I haven’t tried that in openSUSE 11.2, see if it still works.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, vnc from openSUSE-11.2 PC to another openSUSE-11.2 PC works fine for me.

For vnc, all I do is copy and paste the following where computer-a (ip 192.168.2.110) is going to take over the desktop of computer-b (ip 192.168.2.111):
**
computer-a >** ssh -t -L 5900:localhost:5900 oldercpu@192.168.2.111 'x11vnc -localhost -nolookup -nopw -display :0’

and in a second console , also on computer-a

computer-a > vncviewer -encodings “tightvnc copyrect hextile” localhost:0


where “oldercpu” is an account on computer-b that is running, and thats it. The typing can be reduced by using a script, or a copy and paste from a text file on one’s desktop (where the text file contains commonly used long command expressions)

I did NOT spend one second configuring anything else, other than to open up my firewall for ssh and for vnc. And I also installed tightvnc and x11vnc for the above. No other config files to configure.

I’ve been using this technique for over 2 years to remotely maintain my mother’s PC a continent away. (I’ve lost count - maybe for over 3 years). It worked in openSUSE-10.2 and it worked in openSUSE-10.3, and in 11.0, and in 11.1 and it now “just” works now in 11.2.

Note there is NOT a lot of typing to do. Rather one can either:
a. copy this to a text file kept on one’s desktop and copy and paste it into a terminal when needed,
b. put it in a script that is linked to an icon on one’s desktop, or mapped to a specific key,
c. use the history command to recall the last time one ran the command, and then simply copy and paste it again.

What’s the D.E. on the server at your mother’s place oldcpu?

My mother is currently running openSUSE-11.1 with KDE-3.5.10.

Before under openSUSE-10.2 she was running KDE-3.5.5.

And there’s the rub oldcpu. VNC is pretty good whatever the flavour if using KDE 3 or Gnome. It’s only bad for serving a KDE4 desktop.

Hmmm … perhaps true for many cases. … although with those commands I can go from a KDE4 PC to a KDE4 PC. I’ve done this to/from the PCs on my home LAN.

I could not get this working with 11.2 KDE server to 11.1 KDE client. I have no idea why. I even disabled the firewalls to make sure it wasn’t them but that made no difference. When I try connecting to the server nothing would happen. No password prompt or anything.

However oldcpu’s method does work.

I’ve just check out TightVNC for an openSUSE 11.2 server, serving a KDE4 desktop. It works fine using standard RPMs and standard setup. So if it’s not working for you, can I see some of your setup: please post here the results of these three diagnostic console commands:

  1. cat /home/your_username/.vnc/xstartup
  2. cat /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2 | egrep “CONFIGURATIONS_EXT=|DEV_EXT=”
  3. rpm -qa | egrep “vnc|VNC”
  4. and fifth, please show the exact command you use to start a vnc server
  5. sixth and finally, what do you get from this command after you’ve set the server running:
ps -aux | egrep "Xvnc|xstartup"

I got it working. I didn’t have a carriage return at the end of the line in the xstartup file. All working now.

One thing, how do you exit / quit vncviewer cleanly?

A silly question on my part … Do you find the screen redraw is any faster with this method (than the one I use), or is the screen redraw the same speed ?

The screen redraw is much much faster. I’ll need to try your method again later today when I get a chance to make sure the slow response I was getting yesterday wasn’t a one off thing.

It may the that your system going through ssh is what slows it down. The method Swerdna described is not secure so only really suitable for a lan setup.

I’ll experiment and let you know.

Thanks. I’ve been told by someone else that the ssh method I employ is slower, and I was looking for a confirmation viewpoint. Possibly it is because it is going thru ssh, making it slower.

To quit on a Linux client, press F8 and select to “quit viewer”.

An afterthought: does that work for your style of connection too oldcpu, or do you simply quit ssh in some fashion?

I’ll have to try F8 sometime. Typically I just go to one of the two terminal sessions controlling the vnc session and press <CTRL><C>. … I know, not very elegant. … but it works. :slight_smile:

I was using VNC from Germany to Canada earlier this evening (from my openSUSE-11.2 KDE-4.3.1 to her openSUSE-11.1 KDE-3.5.10). My mother’s printer under openSUSE-11.1 (an HP F4200 series) had stopped printing. She phoned me and asked that I print a document for her. With the VNC session active (taking over her deskop in Canada, with me here in Europe), I ended up having to go to YaST on her PC, delete the printer, and then add the printer again. I’m not sure why it stopped working, but it may have been because I updated cups and also hplip on her PC a few weeks ago, and maybe after some cups update it is necessary to re-initialize the printer setup? Fortunately hplip in openSUSE-11.1 sends notification messages in the lower right hand corner when printing starts and stops, letting me know what is happening, as its kind of difficult to see and hear the printer function from across the Atlantic. :slight_smile:

But all is well, the document she wanted printed did in the end print, and it took me less than 10 minutes to sort. Much faster (and cheaper) than flying from Frankfurt > Vancouver > Penticton, … not to mention the taxi rides, security checks, jet lag (and the cost of the air fare). :slight_smile:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:46:02 GMT, oldcpu
<oldcpu@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>swerdna;2072480 Wrote:
>> To quit on a Linux client, press F8 and select to “quit viewer”.
>>
>> An afterthought: does that work for your style of connection too
>> oldcpu, or do you simply quit ssh in some fashion?
>
>I’ll have to try F8 sometime. Typically I just go to one of the two
>terminal sessions controlling the vnc session and press <CTRL><C>. … I
>know, not very elegant. … but it works. :slight_smile:
>
>I was using VNC from Germany to Canada earlier this evening (from my
>openSUSE-11.2 KDE-4.3.1 to her openSUSE-11.1 KDE-3.5.10). My mother’s
>printer under openSUSE-11.1 (an HP F4200 series) had stopped printing.
>She phoned me and asked that I print a document for her. With the VNC
>session active (taking over her deskop in Canada, with me here in
>Europe), I ended up having to go to YaST on her PC, delete the printer,
>and then add the printer again. I’m not sure why it stopped working, but
>it may have been because I updated cups and also hplip on her PC a few
>weeks ago, and maybe after some cups update it is necessary to
>re-initialize the printer setup? Fortunately hplip in openSUSE-11.1
>sends notification messages in the lower right hand corner when printing
>starts and stops, letting me know what is happening, as its kind of
>difficult to see and hear the printer function from across the Atlantic.
>:)
>
>But all is well, the document she wanted printed did in the end print,
>and it took me less than 10 minutes to sort. Much faster (and cheaper)
>than flying from Frankfurt > Vancouver > Penticton, … not to mention
>the taxi rides, security checks, jet lag (and the cost of the air fare).
>:)

This could be the kind of story that would get lots of people to try
Linux. Helping your friends and relatives from halfway around the
world is a really cool thing.

It can be fun as well.

Last February 2009, while in Canada at my mother’s mobile home, my wife and I (between the two of us) spent many hours scanning all the pix of my (long since deceased) father’s photo album with my mother’s multifunction printer (to ensure the pictures last longer in a now different media and do not degrade any more). We used xsane to scan. We put the many jpeg files on a memory stick and brought them back to Europe with us.

Last night my wife was going thru these scanned pix (that I forgot about) and she found a (now scanned) picture taken well over 1/2 century ago, when myself and my two brothers (one of whom is also deceased) were standing next to the family dog. My wife liked it so much, she thought my mother would like it as a desktop background.

So we called my mother on the phone, and got her to boot her PC to the Linux partition. We logged on to her PC with vnc, and I copied the scanned file (from Europe to Canada) to her PC with sftp, and quickly changed her Linux PC’s background from some colourful exotic scenery, to this rather drab old black and white background image of 3 very young children, and the family dog.

And my mother loved it! That old beaten up black and white (now scanned) pix. A big surprise to me, but it does show my wife’s excellent judgment.

With vnc and sftp it was very quick.

A fun evening for all of us.

And by no means unique to Linux, so not sure how you reasoned that.

To the person using SSH: try using a fast cipher (arcfour, blowfish) and experimenting with turning compression on/off.

I do not know how YOU reasoned that I stated it was unique to Linux. I just looked for the word “unique”. Where is it? How did you reason someone was saying it is “unique” to Linux ? Are you addressing my post? Are you addressing this thread?

Still, your sense on this is not too far off. Its NOT unique to Linux, but my wife, our winXP expert, has not figured out how to do it on my mother’s PC with Windoze (because of Windoze firewall issues). But I have this working on Linux. Thats really the sum of it.

But if you are curious as to the details …

My wife has figured out how to access her PC at home (in Europe) from her laptop at work (in Europe). On my wife’s home PC (in Europe), when she wants to access her home WinXP PC from the office laptop (in Europe), and when I am also at home, she has me physically run to her PC and edit her zone alarm firewall, to allow her IP address from the office, which is constantly changing. I have to type in the IP address of the office before zone alarm allows access.

My wife refuses to operate her PC with that part of the WinXP zone alarm firewall open/down. My wife is the WinXP “expert” in our family, so I defer to her judgement here.

But my mother in Canada does not have the capability to constantly modify zone alarm in Windoze to add additional IP addresses (as our IP address in Europe is constantly changing). So Zone Alarm blocks my wife’s access to my mother’s PC in Canada from Europe. We can NOT just skip across the Atlantic and change things on my mother’s PC. Nor is it easy to explain to my mother over the phone what needs to be done. She is 83 years old and Windoze is a mystery to her. Added complication is my mother’s router firewall (in Canada) also needs to be tuned to allow Windoze programs access, and once again, that is not something we can just skip across the Atlantic and tune.

But with ssh and vnc, I don’t have that problem. Before we left Canada almost a year ago, I ensured that both ssh and vnc were routed from the router to my mother’s PC, to specific ports that I specifically opened on her Linux. The openSUSE firewall as we have it setup does not block access based on an IP address.

So while I am sure there is a winXP solution, I don’t have the answer (I stopped using windoze with win95 in 1998).

My wife, our family winXP expert, does not have the knowledge in this.

So its not unique. No one is saying it is unique. But it does work, in Linux, across many thousands of miles.

… and a thought to myself, I can’t figure out why others like to rain on someone elses parade.