Problem with vncserver

Problem with vncserver

I have a LAN server running an older openSUSE 10.3 operation system.
The server is placed in another room. To log
into that server for maintenance and other purposes, I use
a vnc connection from my own laptop. It has been working well
for years, and still does so now.

Time to replace the old server with a new 64-bit desktop
running openSUSE 12.3. On this however, I can not get vnc
to work, using KRDC as front end. Everything is set up,
the ports are open, I have disabled the firewall, I can
log into via ssh. The vncserver has been started, but I
can not log into that computer. There is no login prompt,
but only a big blue screen.

I wonder what is wrong here. Have I forgotten something?
Is there a hardware problem, or what?

Can anybody get me some idea on how to work around it?
Any help would be highly appreciated.

P.S.: Here is the output from the “ps aux | grep vnc” command:

egbert 5243 0.0 0.4 89336 15928 ? Sl Aug29 0:00
Xvnc :4 -desktop X -httpd /usr/share/vnc/classes -auth
/home/egbert/.Xauthority -geometry 1020x760 -depth 24
/-pixelformat rgb888 -rfbwait 120000 -rfbauth
/-/home/egbert/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5904 -fp /usr/share/fonts/misc:
/-/unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/local,/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:
/-/unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled,/usr/share/fonts/Type1,
/-//usr/share/fonts/URW,/usr/share/fonts/Speedo,/usr/share/fonts/
/-//truetype,/usr/share/fonts/uni,/usr/share/fonts/CID -noreset

Hello nicari,

do you get any error messages? How have you installed vnc?
Changing to openSUSE 12.3 was the right way.
Did you use the installation guide of openSUSE?

You can make port scanning from a remote host with:

nmap -sV -p 5801, 5901 IP-Address

Best regards

Thank you, AdaLovelace for your prompt reply.
First the reply to your questions:

  1. No, I did not get any error messages, otherwise I would have
    submitted them with my first message.
  2. I installed vnc from the repositories of openSUSE.
  3. I did not consult the installation guide for this installation. I am
    using Linux since 1996, both privately and in the office. I am
    quite familiar with the installation process.

Thanks for your advise to use nmap for ports scanning. I experimented
several hours and found this:
The ports that are supposed to be open are open, these include
3306 for mysql, 80 and 8008 for http, as well as ports for nfs and ssh.
The ports 590x and 580x are ALWAYS CLOSED, no matter what I do with
the firewall configuration.
Is this a bug, or a problem with the hardware? In the absence of any error
messages, I have no way of finding out. I wonder whether there is a way
out by manually editing some configuration files.

Any Idea?
Thanks for your help.

Where did you open your firewall?
I had problem with ports but i was solved when ports opened i YAST->Firewall->Allowed services… There I used ‘Advanced’ to write the ports to be allowed.
If these ports, or services was chosen in main window (YAST->Firewall->Allowed services) I also had problem.
/J

That’s the right way!
The second method is IPTABLES.

Yes, that is the way I opened to firewall.
I found that there was something else wrong:
The interface eth0 was not set to “External Zone”.
After this was done, the ports opened correctly, as
reported by the nmap command.

But, I can still not log into the system. There is no
password prompt, and I still get a blue screen and
nothing else.
The startup script ~/.vnc/xstartup I have tried the
default provided with openSUSE 12.3, and I have
also tried to one I use with the old server 10.3.
But this is probably irrelevant at this point, as I do not
even get a login prompt, i.e. the startup script is not
even called.
What else can I try to get it working? Is there something
like a configuration file for KRDC, where I can make adjustments?

Thanks for any help you can extend.

A further observation:
Studying the log files, I notice that the vncserver is
looking for a file in may home directory called “.Xresources”,
but can not find it. It is absent. Could this be the reason for
my problems?

Regards

That can be the reason.
If you wouldn’t have got the file, you can create a blank one. :slight_smile:
Use

touch ~/.Xresources

and test the connection with hostname: port.