Enabling VNC Under Solaris 10

Enabling VNC Under Solaris 10

Abstract:
Open Systems have traditionally been accessed via Command Line. MIT create a fully object oriented, multi-tiered, open source windowing system called X Windows, which was quickly adopted by nearly all computing industry players. While X Windows is well suited for local area network technology, the need for wide area network technology was addressed through several different attempts, such as X11R6 "Broadway" and proxies leveraging compression. A lighter WAN suitable screen display protocol, referred to as Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is also commonly used for X displays.

Procedure:

Solaris 10 was shipped with a basic VNC service mostly configured. This is the procedure to enable it.

• Find VNC service

Cainan/root# svcs -a | grep -i vnc
disabled 13:47:12 svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default 

• Enable vnc service

Cainan/root# svcadm enable svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default

• Note that VNC is broken by default, some changes will be required.

Cainan/root# svcs svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default
STATE STIME FMRI
maintenance 14:22:41 svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default

• Append vnc to the /etc/services

Cainan/root# echo "vnc-server\t5900/tcp\t\t\t# Xvnc" >>/etc/services

• Check /etc/services

Cainan/root# tail /etc/services
...
snmpd 161/udp snmp # SMA snmp daemon
vnc-server 5900/tcp # Xvnc

• Note, the gnu display manager is not customized yet, and needs correction

Cainan/root# ls -al /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf
/etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf: No such file or directory

• Enable and configure gnu display manager for vnc

Cainan/root# cat >/etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf <<!
[xdmcp]
Enable=true
[security]
DisallowTCP=false
AllowRoot=true
AllowRemoteRoot=true
!

• Check the customization configuration file

Cainan/root# ls -al /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 85 Dec 19 14:43 /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf

• Re-enable and validate the vnc service

Cainan/root# svcadm disable svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default
STATE STIME FMRI
disabled 14:46:29 svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default
Cainan/root# svcadm enable svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default

Cainan/root# svcs svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default
STATE STIME FMRI
online 14:46:43 svc:/application/x11/xvnc-inetd:default

• Access the vnc server from a vnc client on the network for a test

cainan:0

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Apologies for the issues related to the greater-than and less-than signs. They are not handled gracefully in the blogger software.

Fonts have been adjusted, bullets added for better formatting, and some additional wording since this was originally a hastily assembled article.