[ale] VNC dieing and killing session -- SOLVED

[Michael Hirsch]

I found the solution to the problem I posted a couple weeks ago.  It
turned out that every unpatched version of VNC I could find (Real VNC 3
and 4, Tight VNC) had the same problem.

By lots of googling I found that some others have had the same problem.
Turns out that RedHat has patches.  I didn't apply them myself as
rebuilding the VNC server requires building the X server, too.  I've
done that and didn't like it.

I found that the latest binaries from RH for Fedora Core 2 worked well
for me on RHEL 3.  I emailed the RH developer who created the patches.
They've been pushed back to RealVNC, but their development process there
is opaque, so he has no idea as to whether they patches were accepted,
or when a new release is coming out.

That's another strong argument for not just open source, but an open
development process.  It goes to show that you can have "cathedral"
processes, even in an Open Source project.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
Michael Hirsch
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 10:58 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] VNC dieing and killing session

On Tue, 2004-11-23 at 00:31, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> Michael,
> 
> I thought that xinetd would stop a process once a connection was no
> longer used. That would cause vnc to loose state between connection
> attempts.

If I kill my vnc client deliberately my session stays alive.  I can VNC
again as be right back where I was.  So I suspect that the disconnetion
is a symptom, not the cause.  I think my VNC server is crashing, though
I can't find any evidence.

> Add a logging line in iptables that records access to the 5800/5900
> ports for vnc. Look to see if another process is trying to camp on
that
> space.

Not a bad idea, that.

> Also check if there is a keepalive parameter for the vnc server. Does
> another vnc server have the same problem? I typically use tightvnc as
> much of my remote stuff is over a slow upload dsl line (at best!). I
> have left vnc sessions open for days. I do log into a ssh server at
the
> local site first and then vnc to the next machine.

I'm testing with tightvnc right now.

Thanks,

Michael

> On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 10:28, Michael D. Hirsch wrote:
> > I'm having more, and more serious, VNC trouble.  I run VNC on a
remote
> > system, and then display eclipse on it to do remote programming.
VNC is
> > kicked off by xinetd, so it runs on demand, which is very slick.
It's
> > on a RHEL 3 system.
> > 
> > My problem is that this seems to die frequently.  I'm going along
fine,
> > then suddenly my client gets disconnected.  This shouldn't be so
bad,
> > because I can just reconnect, right?  But no, when I reconnect, my
VNC
> > server has exited and I have to log in all over again.
> > 
> > I can't find any message in any log file relating to why the system
when
> > down.  I'm using the VNC server from Real VNC, version 4.0.  I've
tried
> > multiple clients, with the same behavior, so I don't think it is the
> > client.
> > 
> > Has anyone seen this.  Any suggestions?
> > 
> > Michael
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > 
> > !DSPAM:41a207b3173051594954797!
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