I am attempting to start vncserver on RH 9. I have installed the service and it shows up in the service configuration. I checked the box and then tried to start it, and it immediately pops up service started successfully. Usually it takes a bit for a service to start. After I click ok, the details still say the service is stopped. I have attempted to start and restart the service, but same issue, says it started successfully but the service is still stopped.

Not sure what I am doing wrong, or what else I need to do, any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Ok, you need to provide us with more information.

You can
1) check the /var/log/message to see if there is any vnc relate error message
2) in a console, run - this will print detailed information about how vnc is started

Capture these information and post it here again


However, before you go thru this, you can actually try vncpasswd first. It is very likely that you did not set the password for the login which will use vnc. Check vncpasswd documentation for more detail

Thanks for the information, here is the output from:
bash -x /etc/init.d/vncserver

+ alias 'rm=rm -i'
+ alias 'cp=cp -i'
+ alias 'mv=mv -i'
+ '[' -f /etc/bashrc ']'
+ . /etc/bashrc
+++ id -gn
+++ id -un
+++ id -u
++ '[' root = root -a 0 -gt 99 ']'
++ umask 022
++ '[' '' ']'
+ . /etc/init.d/functions
++ TEXTDOMAIN=initscripts
++ umask 022
++ PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
++ export PATH
++ '[' -z '' ']'
++ COLUMNS=80
++ '[' -z '' ']'
+++ /sbin/consoletype
++ CONSOLETYPE=pty
++ '[' -f /etc/sysconfig/i18n -a -z '' ']'
++ . /etc/sysconfig/i18n
+++ LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+++ SUPPORTED=en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en
+++ SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16
++ '[' pty '!=' pty ']'
++ export LANG
++ '[' -z '' ']'
++ '[' -f /etc/sysconfig/init ']'
++ . /etc/sysconfig/init
+++ BOOTUP=color
+++ RES_COL=60
+++ MOVE_TO_COL=echo -en \033[60G
+++ SETCOLOR_SUCCESS=echo -en \033[0;32m
+++ SETCOLOR_FAILURE=echo -en \033[0;31m
+++ SETCOLOR_WARNING=echo -en \033[0;33m
+++ SETCOLOR_NORMAL=echo -en \033[0;39m
+++ LOGLEVEL=3
+++ PROMPT=yes
++ '[' pty = serial ']'
++ '[' color '!=' verbose ']'
++ INITLOG_ARGS=-q
+ . /etc/sysconfig/network
++ NETWORKING=yes
++ HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain
+ '[' yes = no ']'
+ VNCSERVERS=
+ '[' -f /etc/sysconfig/vncservers ']'
+ . /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
+ prog=VNC server
+ echo 'Usage: /etc/init.d/vncserver {start|stop|restart|condrestart|status}'
Usage: /etc/init.d/vncserver {start|stop|restart|condrestart|status}
+ exit 1

When I had vncserver running on an old linux box that I no longer have, I don't remember having to enter a password, of course I could be mistaken.

Thanks again.

Actually nevermind I got it working, simple changes in one of the files and now it works without a problem.

Thanks for the assistance.