I have been digging into this further, making progress, but also getting into some Linux/OpenSuSE weeds... ;-) I have figured out that if I ssh into the systems which were updated, and on which the x11vnc service stopped working, that if I manually and explicitly set the environment variable for XAUTHORITY i.e.
export XAUTHORITY=/home/$USER/.Xauthority
and then start the x11vnc service -
systemctl restart x11vnc.service
I once again have a happy x11vnc service and can VNC into the system OK. This raises a few questions - 1. Why has the parameter for x11vnc -auth /home/marc/.Xauthority stopped working? According to the man page for x11vnc, this should be equivalent to setting the environment variable XAUTHORITY before running x11vnc. 2. Why isn't this environment variable being set by OpenSuSE any more? It is not in Leap 15.0 apparently after the last set of updates that I had installed, but confusingly it was still being defined in Leap 42.3 but not working anymore. 3. If I have to set it myself, where is the best place to do so? /etc/profiles? /etc/bash.bashrc? /home/marc/.bashrc? Is there someplace I should set this so that both systemd will pick it up when it starts the x11vnc service while not getting clobbered by future updates? (now I am getting into those OpenSuSE/Linux weeds I mentioned and I don't grok the intent of Linux or the platform developers...) I think I am reaching my limits on debugging this on my own, so hopefully some kind guru will come along soon and guide me back into the light... Marc... On 4/14/19 2:26 PM, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
Oh yeah, something in the latest set of updates is definitely breaking x11vnc on me. 3 more computers down for the count, including two Leap 42.3 and another Leap 15.0. They all went down immediately after doing the updates and then rebooting. All showing the same problem with Display :0 in the x11vnc log file...
Marc..
On 4/14/19 8:14 AM, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
Hello - I am running OpenSuSE Leap 15.0, with the KDE desktop using sddm as the display manager, on a number of systems to which I need VNC access to the real display :0 at all times. (I cannot use VNC in a mode where it brings up a log in prompt, I need access to the running display. I leave these systems running 24/7 under my log in account. Most of these run in remote places, running unattended, so it is not easily possible for me to interact with them directly. ) Nor is it an option to change the KDE desktop since I am not the only person accessing these remote systems via VNC and interacting with them, and the other users are NOT sophisticated Linux users and need the GUI support provided by KDE.
Up until what appears to have been a recent update, I have had this working by running x11vnc as a service, on the remote systems, with the following setup -
# cat /etc/systemd/system/x11vnc.service [Unit] Description=X11VNC Service
[Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/bin/x11vnc -auth /home/marc/.Xauthority -display :0 -forever -loop -noxdamage -repeat -rfbauth /etc/vncpasswd -o /var/log/x11vnc.log -rfbport 5900 -noipv6 -shared ExecStop=/usr/bin/x11vnc -R stop Restart=on-failure RestartSec=2 User=root Group=root
[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target I am not sure how to display the contents of the .Xauthority file here as it appears to contain binary data but this cut/paste shows a little bit -
bigbang:/home/marc # cat .Xauthority
linux-0per0MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1��4#��T�o~�;��6 linux-1een0MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1��lQ�����!����� linux-8kpg0MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1bv"��d\�̙����bigbang1MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1�à��RŘ���R� linux-13qd0MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-12�^��l�������'bigbang0MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1ǂ__z�e��!,�m� When I start the x11vnc service and then look at the x11vnc log file, I see something has gotten sick with connecting to DISPLAY :0 and the magic cookie stored in the .Xauthority file-
cat /var/log/x11vnc.log 14/04/2019 07:34:23 passing arg to libvncserver: -rfbauth 14/04/2019 07:34:23 passing arg to libvncserver: /etc/vncpasswd 14/04/2019 07:34:23 passing arg to libvncserver: -rfbport 14/04/2019 07:34:23 passing arg to libvncserver: 5900 14/04/2019 07:34:23 x11vnc version: 0.9.13 lastmod: 2011-08-10 pid: 3672 Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyNo protocol specified 14/04/2019 07:34:23 XOpenDisplay(":0") failed. 14/04/2019 07:34:23 Trying again with XAUTHLOCALHOSTNAME=localhost ... Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyNo protocol specified
14/04/2019 07:34:23 *************************************** 14/04/2019 07:34:23 *** XOpenDisplay failed (:0)
*** x11vnc was unable to open the X DISPLAY: ":0", it cannot continue. *** There may be "Xlib:" error messages above with details about the failure.
Some tips and guidelines: I won't show all the tips and guidelines, but I think I am doing everything suggested... Any ideas why x11vnc suddenly broke? Thanks in advance...
Marc...
-- <b>Computers: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the user Marc.<br> His mission: to explore strange new hardware. To seek out new software and new applications.<br> To boldly go where no Marc has gone before!<br></b> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org