Moving from tigervnc-1.8 to tigervnc-1.11.

[Patrick Begou]

Hi,

I was trying to update tigervnc from 1.8 to 1.11 on a centos7 server
using the rpms available on github. But with this version there is no
vncserver command anymore. The classical use we have with 1.8 version is:

- ssh to the server and launch a vncserver session

- from the laptop connect via a ssh tunnel (using: vncviewer -via
server_name :session_id)

Is there some documentation to start using 1.11 version as usage looks
different ? I only find manual pages detailing options for some
commands  but not how the new "workflow" can/must be used.

Thanks

Patrick

[Pierre Ossman]

The development version has added an HOWTO that should help you get
going with the new way of doing things:

https://github.com/TigerVNC/tigervnc/blob/master/unix/vncserver/HOWTO.md

Regards
--
Pierre Ossman Software Development
Cendio AB https://cendio.com
Teknikringen 8 https://twitter.com/ThinLinc
583 30 Linköping https://facebook.com/ThinLinc
Phone: +46-13-214600

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

[Patrick Begou]

Le 12/07/2021 à 10:13, Pierre Ossman a écrit :
> On 09/07/2021 15:11, Patrick Begou wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was trying to update tigervnc from 1.8 to 1.11 on a centos7 server
>> using the rpms available on github. But with this version there is no
>> vncserver command anymore. The classical use we have with 1.8 version
>> is:
>>
>> - ssh to the server and launch a vncserver session
>>
>> - from the laptop connect via a ssh tunnel (using: vncviewer -via
>> server_name :session_id)
>>
>> Is there some documentation to start using 1.11 version as usage looks
>> different ? I only find manual pages detailing options for some
>> commands  but not how the new "workflow" can/must be used.
>>
>
> The development version has added an HOWTO that should help you get
> going with the new way of doing things:
>
> https://github.com/TigerVNC/tigervnc/blob/master/unix/vncserver/HOWTO.md
>
> Regards

Thanks Pierre for the link and the detailed information. However this
workflow seams a little bit difficult to follow if the admin has to set
a reserved port and a password by hand for each user.
I'm managing many servers and many users with an ldap authentication.
They have sometime several sessions opened... The old method with
vncserver command was really simple to use and flexible.

I've seen that the el8 rpm of tigervnc-server
(tigervnc-server-1.11.0-6.el8.x86_64) is still providing the script, may
be I will try to use it with the el7 rpm provided on github ...

Patrick

[Pierre Ossman]

On 13/07/2021 09:42, Patrick Begou wrote:
>
> Thanks Pierre for the link and the detailed information. However this
> workflow seams a little bit difficult to follow if the admin has to set
> a reserved port and a password by hand for each user.
> I'm managing many servers and many users with an ldap authentication.
> They have sometime several sessions opened... The old method with
> vncserver command was really simple to use and flexible.
>

It was. Unfortunately it was also very unreliable, so we were simply
getting to many bug reports that we couldn't handle. Right now we don't
have anything recommended for letting users start sessions themselves.

> I've seen that the el8 rpm of tigervnc-server
> (tigervnc-server-1.11.0-6.el8.x86_64) is still providing the script, may
> be I will try to use it with the el7 rpm provided on github ...
>

Feel free. Just note that we cannot help you with any session issues
with such scripts, but we will do what we can if there are issues with
Xvnc itself.

[Patrick Begou]

Hi Pierre,

may be a strategy to rely on some authentication systems like LDAP,
PAM,.... to centralize all the setup in a future version ?
Easy to say from the simple user i am... of course.

Patrick

[Brian Cowan]

I know you can use xinetd to start vnc sessions that users then log in to. Wouldn't that work just as well? I've also set up xrdp, which uses tigervnc under the proverbial covers. That may need some tweaking because, at least on the 2 systems I've done it on, some key combinations cause an immediate disconnect. For me both were "will it work (at all) with the product I really support?" kind of tests, and not production use...

Both of the options I mention prompt you for credentials on session initialization, so you may have to tweak authentication if you're using sssd.