CentOS - Jan 2007 - Re: [CentOS-devel] logged in sessions - was CentOS 5 ArtWork

On Sun, 2007-01-14 at 18:38 +0000, Jason_Meers wrote:
> Christoph Maser wrote:
> 
> >>
> > Actually the default logins (text mode and gdm) both show the
hostname.
> > Don't tell me you leave logged in sessions.
> > 
> 
> No not normally, only on a few specific machines on the LAN that are 
> only accessible from another machine on the LAN.
> 
> 1) Not all backup software has usable command line tools, so sometimes 
> you have to connect the a GUI on a logged in session.
> 
> 2) If you look at the way remote desktop(vino-server) and vnc work it is 
> impossible to remote control the session if the machine is not already 
> logged in (the session doesn't exist). Some dirty workarounds do exist 
> i.e the machine uses gnome session, but vnc uses a kde session to avoid 
> various conflicts.
> 
> I reported this to the vino developers in august last year:
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=352349
> 
> --snip--
> Is it possible in any current or future releases of vino to connect to 
> the machine while it is sat at the login screen?
If you use the vnc server built into X.org you have access even without
a logged-in session and I find performance better than using Vino.

I just recently set it up on a CentOS 4.4 workstation so I know it works
with X.org in that version at least.

The following page gives info on how to do it...
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Use_VNC_to_connect_to_existing_X_Sessions

The important section is the following...

File: /etc/X11/xorg.conf 
Section "Module"
  Load     "vnc"
  Load     "freetype"
  Load     "type1"
Section "Screen"
  #This tells X where to locate the VNC password file
  Option     "PasswordFile"   
"/home/your_user_name/.vnc/passwd"
 Section "Files"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib/modules/extensions"
    ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"

Save your changes and close your editor. You will have to restart X (no
need to reboot, just log out (end session in KDE), and hit
CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE when the login window comes back up, then login).

You also need to create your passwd file that you specified above.

Code: ~/.vnc/passwd file
 $ mkdir ~/.vnc
 $ vncpasswd ~/.vnc/passwd
   Password:
   Verify:


Regards,
Paul