I have a newly installed and up2date patched version of RH9 to be used for a c++ programming class. I like to use VNC through a VPN tunnel to get back to my W compies, and have been having a big problem getting any version of VNC server working on RH. The server is working to an extent. I've got the server running, and can connect, but get the infamous gray screen and X combo, rather that an x-window desktop. I've seen numerous descriptions of how to do this with earlier versions of RH, but nothing specific to RH9.

I'm hoping that somebody out there has developed a shell script for properly configuring the desktop, and setting VNC to autostart on boot.

I already admit Newbie status, so any help would be greatly appreciated. If I waste much more time on this, my other classes start to suffer.


TIA

Look in ~/.vnc/xstartup.
Mine looks like:
#!/bin/sh

# Red Hat Linux VNC session startup script
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

Want it to start the service at boot?

chkconfig vncserver on

will do it.

Thanks for the response. I knew it was something simple that I was missing. It would let me log on, but show me a gray screen/X cursor. I found that changing remote login from Standard to Graphical in System Settings/Login Screen, and then restarting vncserver made it work.

The tip on auto start is also helpful. I've found that the vnc session starts with the characteristics of the current user, so wonder if starting on boot will start a session as root? The unix version apparently doesn't give you the option of logging out of the session to a workstation userid prompt like the Windoze versions do. My systems are firewalled, but I don't much care for the prospect of a wide-open root session running 24x7 under VNC's marginal security.

I see RedHat 10 in your Sig. You must really be a glutton for punishment