all..

i have a new one that i havent seen.. i am sure its staring me in the face. i have been using vncserver on CentOS w/o issues..i have it setup so that i can log into a user:2 dasktop after boot.. i have setup vncservers config to accept that user.. i have xstartup to get a gnome session running.. i have been using it for a while now but i never 'logged out' of my session until today.. i always locked screen.. after i logged out of the desktop i now have a blank desktop .. not the original screen that was in twm but a blank desktop that i see the wallpaper and no icons.. it just sits there .. if i reboot its all reset.. how can i use the OS 'log out' and see a new log in prompt..

thanks

r

I think this has to do with how logouts are handled. If a user logs out, then I believe that root takes over the X session in order to display the login prompt. If that is the case, then VNC can't show you the login screen because the VNC session is limited to your user and can't show root's screen. In other words, once you log out, there is no X session for VNC to display.

Of course this begs the question of why you would log out of a VNC session in the first place. In general, if you simply close the client session, no one should be able to access it without your username and password. If you want to add more security (or use VNC across the internet) you could tunnel it through an SSH session.