VNC on Solaris

VNC was originally written for Solaris and Solaris 8, 9 and 10 supports VNC extremely well. For Solaris 10 Xvnc is also an interesting option, but old good VNC works OK.

VNC is heterogeneous client-server application that uses it own protocol. In a way it is similar to Windows Remote Desktop but it can be run for each user and users can have different desktops. It works less efficiently on slow lines but it does work. Radmin might be a better choice for slow line or if you need a session encryption. For more details see main VNC page. The most typical usage of VNC is when the client (VNC viewer) is running on Windows and server on Unix, in our case this is a Solaris server.

As for viewer TightVNC is recommended as a client on Windows. It's perfectly compatible with all existing VNC servers (you do not need to run TightVNC on the server if you are using TightVNC viewer on Windows. It is also compatible with x11vnc and provides better color correspondence and graphic correspondence that a regular VNC client (especially noticeable if you use CDE as windows manager for VNC server). See main VNC page for details and short tutorial on configuration.

NOTES:

If we are are talking about the source the sky is the limit. You can compile TightVNC or whatever server you might want. If we are talking about precompiled packages that there are three major solutions for VNC server in Solaris:

The vncserver script modification

The script vncserver is simultaneously an installation script and optionally can serve as a startup script. As an installation scrip it created and populated ~/.vnc directory with several files. The most important of those is xstartup. This directory also stores password for the session. To start VNC you need to launch XVNC with proper environment and parapeters.

You can use CDE (launch dtwm manager), GNOME (gnome-session or startgnome) or KDE (startkde) as a windows manager in VNC. Each of them should have proper, verified path -- wrong path is the most common installation mistake people make.

One way to specify windows manager is to edit vncserver Perl script. The variable that specifies the default manager is $defaultXStartup. It contains several parameters and the windows manager is specified at the very end of the value of this variable (usually on the last separate line). In this case when vncserver will run the first time it will create .vnc directory and populate it with files that contain the necessary parameters (the name of the windows manager gores to xstartup).

In you have several windows managers installed then you can modify vncserver Perl script and set one on them to be the default windows manager. Common options include:

Here is an example, where vncserver Perl script was edited to set the default windows manager to CDE ("safe choice"):

If you still want bloated Gnome 2.0 as your desktop here is an example (gnome-session should in your path or you need to specify the directory; you can use gnome-session instead of startgnome; ensure the correct path and that all the necessary libraries are present in the path):

See VNC on Solaris 10 for details necessary for gnome in case it is also your default desktop (do not use the ksh installation script provided -- it makes several assumptions and perform actions without proper verification if the conditions for those actions are present on your system).

After that you can run vncserver script and it will ask you for session password. During this invocation it will create the directory .vnc in your home directory and will put into it several files. One of them is xstartup that contains the content of the Perl variable that we discussed above:

You can edit this file to change windows manager to the manager that you personally prefer if you change your mind later on (it's shown in red).

You can also change several parameters in .vnc/xstartup to make VNC more customised to you tastes:

Notes:

Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be expected.
This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It cannot replace the best teachers and the best books.
The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a living tree... Some links on older pages are broken. Please try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link (see HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate if you can mail us a correct link.

Search Amazon by keywords:
Open directory	Research Index

Old News ;-)

Things i've learned about Solaris...

VNC for Solaris10

[Jul 26, 2007] VNC for Solaris10

lmccodj
Posts:5
Registered: 8/25/06
Re: VNC for Solaris10
Feb 9, 2006 7:39 AM (reply 1 of 9)

Hi,
I am not using the one from sunfreeware.com I have the one that is delivered with the Solaris 10 Companion CD. The package name is SFWvnc.
The binary /opt/sfw/bin/Xvnc requires the two libraries
- /usr/sfw/lib/libgcc_s.so.1
- /usr/sfw/lib/libstdc++.so.6
available in the package SUNWgccruntime
set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to /usr/lib:/usr/sfw/lib:/lib in the startup script and you should be in business.

In your case you might be missing a library, check with ldd on x11vnc binary

[Apr 2, 2007] Solaris 10, gcc and VNC server by jalzabrewer

[Mar 24, 2007] freshmeat.net Project details for Enhanced TightVNC Viewer

Enhanced TightVNC Viewer 1.0.14 released. The Enhanced TightVNC Viewer package is part of the x11vnc VNC server project.

[Dec 06, 2006] BigAdmin Description: How to enable XDM and VNC for Linux and Solaris

[Dec 06, 2006] Enhanced TightVNC Viewer TightVNC viewer enhanced with SSL tunnelling and other features.

C, Tcl, Unix Shell

Free TridiaVNC Download

x11vnc a VNC server for real X displays allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse.

x11vnc-0.7-sol9-sparc-local.gz x11vnc is a vnc server for X displays. It allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse - installs in /usr/local. This package also needs to have the following packages installed - zlib, jpeg, and /usr/local/lib/libgcc_s.so.1 from either libgcc-3.3 or gcc or later. You will need a vnc viewer on your client machines. I have tested the tightvnc java based viewers for Solaris and Mac OSX and will be offering a compiled version of the tightvnc vncviewer for Solaris here shortly.

x11vnc-0.7.tar.gz Source Code. [Details]

SourceForge.net File Release Notes and Changelog

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) Utility

Short description and name of binaries
Usage: how to start, how to use it
Making the connection secure with SSH
Official Documentation on local server

VNC over SSH2 - A TightVNC Tutorial Van Emery - June, 2003

TightVNC:

Main Links

TightVNC- VNC-Based Free Remote Control Solution site of Constantin Kaplinsky

freshmeat.net: Project details for TightVNC

SourceForge.net Project Info - TightVNC

x11vnc a VNC server for real X displays

X11vnc Solaris 10 packaged on www.sunfreeware.com

x11vnc-0.7-sol10-sparc-local.gz x11vnc is a vnc server for X displays. It allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse - installs in /usr/local. This package also needs to have the following packages installed - zlib, jpeg, and /usr/local/lib/libgcc_s.so.1 from either libgcc-3.3 or gcc or later. You will need a vnc viewer on your client machines. I have tested the tightvnc java based viewers for Solaris and Mac OSX and will be offering a compiled version of the tightvnc vncviewer for Solaris here shortly.

x11vnc-0.7-sol10-intel-local.gz x11vnc is a vnc server for X displays. It allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse - installs in /usr/local. This package also needs to have the following packages installed - zlib, jpeg, and /usr/local/lib/libgcc_s.so.1 from either libgcc-3.3 or gcc or later. You will need a vnc viewer on your client machines. I have tested the tightvnc java based viewers for Solaris and Mac OSX and will be offering a compiled version of the tightvnc vncviewer for Solaris here shortly.

SV Solaris Management Console via VNC Cruz Walter Walter.Cruz "at" telenor.se
Fri Oct 29 13:51:01 2004

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Hi!

I worked hard to get some Solaris stuff to work through VNC.
Some started with the wrong fonts so it was unreadable, some didn't even
start at all.

What I did to solve this was to tell the VNC-server to use a
font-server. X11 standard worked fine for me = xfs

Though I'm using a FreeBSD as main host, I'm not sure if the font-server
is the same in Solaris.

But the solution is the same, because Xvnc is not capable of reading ALL
fonts.

So instead of using a font-PATH, just use a xfont-server and give the
path to it.

Then the font-server will serve Xvnc with fonts, that did the magic and
I no longar have troubles with it.

How you call/configure the font-server is up to you system. Make a "man
X" it should say what standard Font-server are supposed to work for you.

Then I supossed that u are running Xfree86. When you know how to config
the font server, then you just add the call to start the server in xstartup 
And then you tell your x-server to use a font-server instead of a
font-path.


// Walter


>Need some input on trying to get SMC 2.0 to run via VNC on Solaris 8.
VNC 
>works fine and all utils seem to work fine but everytime I try and
launch 
>SMC I receive the following - I get the initial image and it says 
>Initializing console..., Setting look and feel..., Initializing
console..., 
>Starting console... and then the images dies and the SMC server never
comes 
>up. Running SMC on the console works fine. My xstartup has been
modified so 
>that the window manager has been commented out. In this case, "#twm". I
have 
>appended the contents of the "/usr/dt/bin/Xsession" minus the
additional 
>"#!/bin/ksh" to the xstartup file. Any ideas are appreciated.
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how
to 
>get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement

VNC with CDE problems

mjm@wru.org mjm@wru.org
Thu, 25 Oct 2001 22:04:05 -0500

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sure enough!

you need to set Xvnc owner/group/perms to match those of Xsun.

ie chgrp root;chmod 2775

also, if you want to run dtwm, you need to rip out all the useless stuff it
puts in the default startup script and just use Xsession.

/usr/openwin/bin needs to be in the path so things can be found, such as
Xauth.

I've got a little script that runs vnc:

#!/bin/ksh
PATH=$PATH:/usr/dt/bin
cd ~
vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1152x900 :1

and /etc/init.d/vnc

#!/bin/ksh
#start and stop vnc sessions.
case "$1" in
'start')
     printf "Starting VNC servers for: "
	for a in /export/home/*/bin/vnc
	do
		cd ${a%%/bin/vnc}
		id=`pwd|sed -e 's-/export/home/--'`
		printf "%s, " $id
		su - $id bin/vnc&
	done
	printf "\n"
	;;

'stop')
      echo Stopping vnc sessions
	 ps -ef|grep -v awk|awk '/Xvnc :/ {print $9}'|while read session
      do
           /usr/local/bin/vncserver -kill $session
      done
	;;
*)
	echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}"
	exit 1
	;;
esac
exit 0


and /etc/rc2.d/S99vnc:

#!/bin/ksh
#start and stop vnc sessions.
printf "Starting VNC servers for: "

case "$1" in
'start')
        /etc/init.d/vnc $1
        ;;

'stop')
      echo Stopping vnc sessions
         ps -ef|grep -v awk|awk '/Xvnc :/ {print $9}'|while read session
      do
           /usr/local/bin/vncserver -kill $session
      done
        ;;
*)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}"
        exit 1
        ;;
esac
exit 0

(that little fiddly bit needed to get the init.d script to run under ksh)

all this so that vnc is up and running for everybody on the box right after
boot.

Sun Microsystems Support Forums

rhaertle wrote on Mon, 28 June 2004 15:40

Hello,

I am having trouble getting VNC working with JDS R2.

This is NOT remote desktop admin. I want to use the machine with no terminal.

I have done this with various other linuxes. Sometimes it works to start vncserver in a file in rc.d/init.d. The best way is to start vncserver as a service that executes Xvnc whenever there is a connection attempt on port 5900 or 5901 (add a line to /etc/services and an entry in inetd.conf or a file in xinetd.d).

I have tried a whole bunch of different stuff on JDS R2 without getting it to work.

Can anybody help? Again, this is not Remote Desktop the way it ships with the system.

On Suse you get to vnc via Launch->Preferences->Remote Desktop

That gives you a GUI to enable VNC server. You can also run: /usr/X11R6/bin/vncserver in a terminal
it will setup fine. You'll need to provide a password. If you've run vnc with other Linux distributions, then this is no different than SuSE as far as VNC is concerned.

You can also run the command: vncviewer and it will ask for an IP and password to get a remote desktop.
It's pretty normal. You can also create a launcher for the viewer.

==========================

That approach won't solve the issue. The built-in "Remote Desktop" only allows remote access to a desktop that has already been started, and this PC has no running desktop.

Here's a reference that explains the theory, from Linux Mag's Guru Guidance column:
http://www.linux-mag.com/2003-03/guru_01.html

Running vncserver in a terminal is also not an option, since there is no desktop or terminal running. In an emergency, I can telnet or ssh to the machine, start vncserver by hand, and then access the machine via VNC, but that's too much trouble to do every day.

I want to start Xvnc automatically when the machine boots. The PC is without monitor, and vnc will be the only way I connect to it. I have done this with various other linuxes, I just haven't gotten it working in JDS. Sometimes it works to fire vncserver during startup (in an rc file), and sometimes it works to fire Xvnc via inet as a service when it gets a connect attempt on port 5900. I've even done it with xdmcp, but none of my attempts have worked in JDSR2.

If you can get this working, let me know. To test it, turn your machine on, and let it boot to rl5 (the display manager login screen). Then go to another machine, and connect to it via vnc.

Thanks.

rhaertle
Messages: 0
Registered: June 2004
Junior Member

I finally got this working. The machine is now running deadheaded with no monitor.

1) vnc is not installed in the default configuration. Don't pick it off the yast install list; I could not get the version shipped with JDS to work. I used realvnc. Download it as a tarfile. Run ./vncinstall to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/man.

2) Use gdmsetup, or in /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf, set xdmcp Enable=true. By the way, while the system is coming up, you'll see init throw a "failed" message for gdm, I don't know why. This change is causing the failure, but everything seems to work. I'm not going to spend alot of time figuring out how to clean up whatever is reporting bad status, since it's running.

3) In /etc/services, add "vncserver 5901/tcp #vncserver". The 01 means screen :1. When the system gets a connect attempt on that port, it'll run the vnc server.

4) Using launch / prefs / system / sw & services / start & stop or edit inetd.conf to add the service. Add "vncserver stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/bin/Xvnc -once -securitytypes=none -inetd -query localhost". You can add -geometry and -depth if you want. You can add multiple lines here (inetd.conf) and to /etc/services for different geometries.

5) Load vnc into XF86. Use the XF86 config scripts, or in /etc/X11/XF86Config, add "load vnc" to the modules section.

Restart init and gdm or reboot. Now, when the machine boots, and you connect via vnc, you'll get a gdm login screen.

Don't do this unless your network is already completely secure.

ReVNC - X Windows

>OK. I just downloaded the latest version of VNC. And it now works. At least
>you can connect now. However it doesn't bring up KDE. It just has a terminal
>session running. How would you go about getting it to start KDE or GNOME
>instead of the terminal session?

Yep, this is very normal. Depending on how you start x you will get diffrent configuartions of window manager/etc... Normally if you have xdm a script~ in /etc/X11/xdm called Xsession get run, if you do a startx (which is a script itself), it runs /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc as the startup file. THese startup files fire up a window manager, etc... Becuase the window manager or session manager are components of an X environment, and not "integrated" into the graphics subsystem. I don't know if you knew all that, but some Windows-backgrounded people don't, so I mention it for completeness.

When you run "vncserver" (which is a script that starts Xvnc), it looks in a sub-dir called .vnc in your home for a file called "xstartup", which it uses to build your prefered X environment (window/session managers, etc...). If you wish this to be the same as when you login to the system locally make it a sym-link to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc, and that should do the trick. Or else
you can hack "vncserver" to not bother with the home directory stuff at all and just start a certain window manager (which is what I do, in fact, I have it start star office with no window manager at all).~

For those of you curious I have found that Star Office running to a remote X display eats about 15-20% of one of the CPU's even when idle and on another virtual desktop. If I run it in a local Xvnc and then connect over a network with VNC, idle means idle, and it consumes no CPU resources when not in focus. Someone explain that on too me please? (Not that I really mind, VNC with zlib compressesion uses alot less bandwith than X anyway).

Re: VNC - X Windows

I start a VNC server on Solaris like this:

vncserver -depth 8 -geometry 800x600 -cc 3 -query localhost -once

This gives me a normal CDE login screen.

My ~/.vnc/xstartup is empty.

Recommended Links

TightVNC:

Main Links

TightVNC- VNC-Based Free Remote Control Solution site of Constantin Kaplinsky

freshmeat.net: Project details for TightVNC

SourceForge.net Project Info - TightVNC

Articles:

VNC over SSH2 - A TightVNC Tutorial Van Emery - June, 2003

Setting up TightVNC and SSH on a Windows NT machine

Tightvnc, Chicken of the VNC

TightVNC

x11vnc:

Solaris 10

x11vnc-0.7-sol10-sparc-local.gz x11vnc is a vnc server for X displays. It allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse - installs in /usr/local. This package also needs to have the following packages installed - zlib, jpeg, and /usr/local/lib/libgcc_s.so.1 from either libgcc-3.3 or gcc or later. You will need a vnc viewer on your client machines. I have tested the tightvnc java based viewers for Solaris and Mac OSX and will be offering a compiled version of the tightvnc vncviewer for Solaris here shortly.

x11vnc-0.7-sol10-intel-local.gz x11vnc is a vnc server for X displays. It allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse - installs in /usr/local. This package also needs to have the following packages installed - zlib, jpeg, and /usr/local/lib/libgcc_s.so.1 from either libgcc-3.3 or gcc or later. You will need a vnc viewer on your client machines. I have tested the tightvnc java based viewers for Solaris and Mac OSX and will be offering a compiled version of the tightvnc vncviewer for Solaris here shortly.

The .Xdefaults file can be used to define default values for many of the properties of X clients. The following example shows how some of the defaults for xterm and xclock may be defined.

When setting up Solaris you will probably get a grey screen. The Q&A suggest using a different desktop type. For a full list of the options check:

The VNC software create a subdirectory in your home directory called .vnc (note the "." bevore the name vnc). In this subdirectory there is a file called xstartup in which we can write the commands which starts a Desktop.

Starting a VNC server

Once your password has been created you are ready to start a VNC server session. This session should run on a sun machine. You use a VNC client to connect to that session. You can modified the vncserver program to run a Xsession automatically. This will give you the default CDE environment. Here is an example:

In the message that following that server will communicate that display number VNC will use, for example "New 'X' desktop is sandbox:1"

The vncserver program creates a default startup file in your personal ~/.vnc directory. This file runs Xsession to start CDE for you. The two command line arguments I used are all you will ever really need. The first, -depth 24, specifies that the VNC server start an X session at 24 bit color depth. If you run PC at 32 bit color depth, you might want your VNC session and home PC's color depth to match, but you better not do that . Because of Solaris X-server-isms, you should use 24 bit color with vncserver if you run 24 or 32 bit color at home. Yes, they do not exactly match, but programs like netscape won't work unless you do this. The next command line option, -geometry 1280x1024, specifies that the VNC session desktop will be 1280x1024 in size. The default is 1024x768, but that might be too small for those with 21' displays :-).

If you use the Windows vncviewer program it is possible to specify that it use your whole Windows desktop, in which case you would want to start vncserver with the same resolution as your Windows desktop.

When you are finished with your VNC session, after reading the notes on exiting CDE and VNC below, you kill the vncserver like this:

Login to the machine on which you started vncserver and kill it with the -kill display_number command line option. Yes, that display number has importance! There are important notes about running CDE and different window managers later on in this document. Please read them.

NOTE: You must login to the machine you started vncserver on. This means you have to connect to the specific host you ran vncserver on!

Users sometimes forget to kill their vncserver process, instead opting for starting yet another one. This unreasonably eats system resources. You might benefit from a wrapper script that checks there is a vncserver process running for you on the current Solaris login server. If there is, it tells you how to kill it. This is important to conserve resources. VNC login sessions consume a lot of resources.

One of the most important pieces of information about your VNC session is what display it is running on. When you started vncserver on the remote machine it printed out something like the following:

In this case the VNC server is running on sandbox:1. Here :1 means display number 1. This number should be used in vncviewer on your PC to connect to this host. In Windows the vncviewer program has a GUI interface and you can right click on the taskbar and set some connection options (for example fullscreen).

The vncserver starts a small HTTP daemon that serves Java class files that your browser can execute if you connect it to the proper port: http://vncserver_host:58nn The vncserver_host is the remote host you started the VNC server on. The port specifies the display number. In my case I would connect to sandbox on port 5801, since my display was 01:

NOTE: It is possible to exit the vnclient and leave the server running remotely. You can then connect to it again, and everything is still running like you left it. This is a very cool feature.

News	See also	Recommended Links	Recommended Articles	X11vnc	Radmin
Starting VNC server	RC scripts	The `vncserver` modification	.Xdefaults	Xstartup
Typical mistakes	VNC on Windows	VNC on Linux		Humor	Etc

VNC on Solaris

The vncserver script modification

Old News ;-)

Things i've learned about Solaris...

VNC for Solaris10

[Jul 26, 2007] VNC for Solaris10

[Jul 26, 2007] VNC for Solaris10

[Apr 2, 2007] Solaris 10, gcc and VNC server by jalzabrewer

[Mar 24, 2007] freshmeat.net Project details for Enhanced TightVNC Viewer

Enhanced TightVNC Viewer 1.0.14 released. The Enhanced TightVNC Viewer package is part of the x11vnc VNC server project.

[Dec 06, 2006] BigAdmin Description: How to enable XDM and VNC for Linux and Solaris

[Dec 06, 2006] Enhanced TightVNC Viewer TightVNC viewer enhanced with SSL tunnelling and other features.

C, Tcl, Unix Shell

Free TridiaVNC Download

x11vnc a VNC server for real X displays allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse.

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) Utility

How to choose the Desktop type

VNC over SSH2 - A TightVNC Tutorial Van Emery - June, 2003

x11vnc a VNC server for real X displays

X11vnc Solaris 10 packaged on www.sunfreeware.com

SV Solaris Management Console via VNC Cruz Walter Walter.Cruz "at" telenor.se
Fri Oct 29 13:51:01 2004

VNC with CDE problems

Sun Microsystems Support Forums

Re: VNC - X Windows

Recommended Links

.Xdefaults to helps to get nicer xterms

A sample .Xdefaults file

Xstartup

Starting a VNC server

VNC on Solaris

Old News ;-)

[Jul 26, 2007] VNC for Solaris10

[Jul 26, 2007] VNC for Solaris10

[Apr 2, 2007] Solaris 10, gcc and VNC server by jalzabrewer

[Mar 24, 2007] freshmeat.net Project details for Enhanced TightVNC Viewer

Enhanced TightVNC Viewer 1.0.14 released. The Enhanced TightVNC Viewer package is part of the x11vnc VNC server project.

[Dec 06, 2006] BigAdmin Description: How to enable XDM and VNC for Linux and Solaris

[Dec 06, 2006] Enhanced TightVNC Viewer TightVNC viewer enhanced with SSL tunnelling and other features.

C, Tcl, Unix Shell

x11vnc a VNC server for real X displays allows remote viewing and interaction with real X displays via keyboard and mouse.

How to choose the Desktop type

VNC over SSH2 - A TightVNC Tutorial Van Emery - June, 2003

SV Solaris Management Console via VNC Cruz Walter Walter.Cruz "at" telenor.se Fri Oct 29 13:51:01 2004

SV Solaris Management Console via VNC Cruz Walter Walter.Cruz "at" telenor.se
Fri Oct 29 13:51:01 2004