Comments on: Linux: Headless Ubuntu with VNC http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/ Ramblings of a Technology Handyman. Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:08:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Scott Yee http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-24 Scott Yee Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:08:36 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-24 Hi John, Hmmm, I’ve never performed a full xfce install, but after some searching, there are a few things you can try to maybe fix this error. I’ve seen a few forum posts that state that you will need to make sure that xserver is installed, try the command “sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg” Also you may want to verify the permissions and ownership of xserver, you may want to try, sudo chmod a+s /usr/bin/X /usr/bin/Xorg References: – http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/xinit-x-problem-237498/ – https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XineramaHowTo I hope this helps. - Scott Hi John,

Hmmm, I’ve never performed a full xfce install, but after some searching, there are a few things you can try to maybe fix this error. I’ve seen a few forum posts that state that you will need to make sure that xserver is installed, try the command “sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg”

Also you may want to verify the permissions and ownership of xserver, you may want to try,
sudo chmod a+s /usr/bin/X /usr/bin/Xorg

References:
– http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/xinit-x-problem-237498/
– https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XineramaHowTo

I hope this helps.

- Scott

]]> By: John Hunter http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-22 John Hunter Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:15:20 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-22 Great guide. I have tried to use it to setup xubuntu desktop. I think I have done everything but I can't get the GUI interface xfce to work on the server it says Fatal server error: no screens found xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error. Any idea of what I can try? Great guide. I have tried to use it to setup xubuntu desktop. I think I have done everything but I can’t get the GUI interface xfce to work on the server it says

Fatal server error: no screens found

xinit: No such file or directory (errno 2): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.

Any idea of what I can try?

]]> By: Harriet Snaples http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-21 Harriet Snaples Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:07:21 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-21 Great stuff, liked this post! Great stuff, liked this post!

]]> By: Scott Yee http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-19 Scott Yee Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:49:37 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-19 Derek, thanks for the comments, I've been wanting to look into security issues next on my box setup. Derek, thanks for the comments, I’ve been wanting to look into security issues next on my box setup.

]]> By: Derek http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-18 Derek Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:57:00 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-18 Forgot to mention: If you have many users using a VNC desktop server, you probably want to prevent them from being able to shut down the computer. See "Security Issues" at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/daniel.rigal/xdmvnc.html Forgot to mention: If you have many users using a VNC desktop server, you probably want to prevent them from being able to shut down the computer. See “Security Issues” at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/daniel.rigal/xdmvnc.html

]]> By: Derek http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-17 Derek Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:54:45 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-17 The configuration described above will only allow one user to connect at a time. It will also allow you to resume sessions; i.e., to open a bunch of programs, disconnect, and then reconnect later (with all those same apps still open). If you leave a VNC session running, then the only thing keeping a user from seeing your desktop (and launching a shell as you) will be the VNC password. But here is an alternate configuration. In this example, many different users can connect with VNC and login concurrently. Each user will have a private VNC session (not a shared session). And when the user logs out, their VNC session will be closed and their Gnome session will be killed. This is useful if you need a VNC server that can provide Linux desktops to many different people at the same time. First, note that (unlike Scott's example above) there is no VNC password. Instead, users must log in each time using their GDM (system account) login. Also, in this setup, VNC gets run as user "nobody" instead of user "root". (However, when the VNC client user logs in to GDM, they will be acting as the user account they logged in with.) To set up this multi-user access, the only change from the tutorial above is in the file "/etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc". Here is the new version of "/etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc" (for multiple, concurrent user logins): { type = UNLISTED disable = no socket_type = stream protocol = tcp wait = no user = nobody server = /usr/bin/Xvnc server_args = -inetd -query localhost -geometry 1024×768 -depth 16 -once -fp /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc -NeverShared -SecurityTypes None -extension XFIXES port = 7900 } The key differences are: wait = no user = nobody server_args = [...snip...] -SecurityTypes None Finally, on my VNC desktop server I also run virtual machines using Virt-Manager, libvirtd, and KVM. By default that will use VNC on ports 5900, 5901, 5902, etc. for Virtual Machine terminals. That will conflict is you also try to use those ports for VNC GDM logins. To avoid a conflict between my Virtual Machine terminals and my GDM VNC logins, I cranked up my VNC port to 7900. That means I'd need to start two thousand Virtual Machines before I'd see a port conflict. The configuration described above will only allow one user to connect at a time. It will also allow you to resume sessions; i.e., to open a bunch of programs, disconnect, and then reconnect later (with all those same apps still open). If you leave a VNC session running, then the only thing keeping a user from seeing your desktop (and launching a shell as you) will be the VNC password.

But here is an alternate configuration. In this example, many different users can connect with VNC and login concurrently. Each user will have a private VNC session (not a shared session). And when the user logs out, their VNC session will be closed and their Gnome session will be killed. This is useful if you need a VNC server that can provide Linux desktops to many different people at the same time.

First, note that (unlike Scott’s example above) there is no VNC password. Instead, users must log in each time using their GDM (system account) login. Also, in this setup, VNC gets run as user “nobody” instead of user “root”. (However, when the VNC client user logs in to GDM, they will be acting as the user account they logged in with.)

To set up this multi-user access, the only change from the tutorial above is in the file “/etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc”.

Here is the new version of “/etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc” (for multiple, concurrent user logins):

{
type = UNLISTED
disable = no
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
user = nobody
server = /usr/bin/Xvnc
server_args = -inetd -query localhost -geometry 1024×768 -depth 16 -once -fp /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc -NeverShared -SecurityTypes None -extension XFIXES
port = 7900
}

The key differences are:

wait = no
user = nobody
server_args = [...snip...] -SecurityTypes None

Finally, on my VNC desktop server I also run virtual machines using Virt-Manager, libvirtd, and KVM. By default that will use VNC on ports 5900, 5901, 5902, etc. for Virtual Machine terminals. That will conflict is you also try to use those ports for VNC GDM logins.

To avoid a conflict between my Virtual Machine terminals and my GDM VNC logins, I cranked up my VNC port to 7900. That means I’d need to start two thousand Virtual Machines before I’d see a port conflict.

]]> By: Derek http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-16 Derek Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:41:13 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-16 Scott, I used vnc4server, just like your tutorial. The problem is simply a typo in your article. You have us create a VNC password file as root, which gets created at /root/.vnc/passwd, but in your example file "/etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc" you have a missing forward-slash. It says /root/.vncpasswd instead of /root/.vnc/passwd. My next post will show an alternate setup. Scott,
I used vnc4server, just like your tutorial. The problem is simply a typo in your article. You have us create a VNC password file as root, which gets created at /root/.vnc/passwd, but in your example file “/etc/xinetd.d/Xvnc” you have a missing forward-slash. It says /root/.vncpasswd instead of /root/.vnc/passwd.

My next post will show an alternate setup.

]]> By: Greenender http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-15 Greenender Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:00:01 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-15 Thank you for this guide. Works like a charm on ubuntu 9.10 for me. Thank you for this guide. Works like a charm on ubuntu 9.10 for me.

]]> By: Scott Yee http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-14 Scott Yee Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:40:24 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-14 Derek, Thank you for the information on the quotes and the correction. I was wondering which VNC server are you using? For more information on setting the VNC password: http://linux.die.net/man/1/vncpasswd, especially if you want to set different passwords for different users. The tutorial I wrote was mostly for my home box so basically everything was for root (I know not always the best security). Thanks again! Derek, Thank you for the information on the quotes and the correction. I was wondering which VNC server are you using? For more information on setting the VNC password: http://linux.die.net/man/1/vncpasswd, especially if you want to set different passwords for different users. The tutorial I wrote was mostly for my home box so basically everything was for root (I know not always the best security).

Thanks again!

]]> By: Derek http://www.scotttyee.com/blog/2009/12/09/linux-headless-ubuntu-with-vnc/#comment-13 Derek Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:50:47 +0000 http://scotttyee.com/blog/?p=158#comment-13 I found the problem, there is a missing / character. It should be: /root/.vnc/passwd ...in the step where you "gedit /etc/xinetd.d/Xvn". Also, if you cut and paste from this web page, the quotes (") will get pasted as directional quotes ( “ and ” ) and that will cause X to fail to launch. So make sure to manually use the " character. Thanks for writing this up, it was a big help. I found the problem, there is a missing / character. It should be:

/root/.vnc/passwd

…in the step where you “gedit /etc/xinetd.d/Xvn”.

Also, if you cut and paste from this web page, the quotes (“) will get pasted as directional quotes ( “ and ” ) and that will cause X to fail to launch. So make sure to manually use the ” character.

Thanks for writing this up, it was a big help.

]]>