Arch Linux

bartoszw

Member

Registered: 2020-02-25

Posts: 10

VNC directly to the login screen

Hello everyone,

Firstly I would like to provide you scenario what I would like to fulfil:

1) Powering on my pc by magic packet [DONE]
2) Logging via ssh [DONE]
3) Running via ssh x11vnc and login to the system via display manager login screen [after 5 hours of messing around FAILED]

It is my daily use machine with installed GDM and GNOME 3, I would like to run x11vnc session only on demand when its needed.

I managed to run x11vnc session AFTER login without any problems by command:

x11vnc -display :1 -noxrecord -noxfixes -noxdamage -forever -passwd 123456

As stated in arch wiki I tried to pass to x11vnc X authority but I could not find this file anywhere (.Xauthority), I think that this is main problem that I could not overcome.

I tried solution from https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X1 … leshooting #2 , symlink is creating, but I cannot cat it, it gives me message:

ln -sv $(dirname $(xauth info | awk '/Authority file/{print $3}')) ~/.Xauthority
zsh: command not found: xauth
dirname: missing operand
Try 'dirname --help' for more information.
'./.Xauthority' -> '/home/bartosz/.Xauthority'

-----

cat ./.Xauthority
cat: ./.Xauthority: Too many levels of symbolic links

All trials of run x11vnc on login screen ends up with this:

25/02/2020 09:28:50 passing arg to libvncserver: -passwd
25/02/2020 09:28:50 x11vnc version: 0.9.16 lastmod: 2019-01-05  pid: 3717
25/02/2020 09:28:50 XOpenDisplay(":1") failed.
25/02/2020 09:28:50 Trying again with XAUTHLOCALHOSTNAME=localhost ...

25/02/2020 09:28:50 ***************************************
25/02/2020 09:28:50 *** XOpenDisplay failed (:1).     <--- :0 is not working also

*** x11vnc was unable to open the X DISPLAY: ":1", it cannot continue.
*** There may be "Xlib:" error messages above with details about the failure.

My software:
Linux 5.5.5-arch1-1 x86_64
gdm - 3.34.1-2
gnome-desktop 3.34.4-1
x11vnc 0.9.16-1

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,456

Re: VNC directly to the login screen

.Xauthority is a directory, not a file. You also need to install xorg-xauth, which provides /usr/bin/xauth.

kokoko3k

Member

Registered: 2008-11-14

Posts: 2,473

Re: VNC directly to the login screen

Did you tried this?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LightDM#VNC_Server
Not sure it allows connection resume tbh.

EDIT
also it seems you did something wrong here:

cat: ./.Xauthority: Too many levels of symbolic links

Basically you failed to make a link to the file.
It is also telling you xauth binary is missing, how do you expect it to work?

Last edited by kokoko3k (2020-02-26 05:56:22)

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bartoszw

Member

Registered: 2020-02-25

Posts: 10

Re: VNC directly to the login screen

I can't go through that... After installing xorg-auth I can manage to link directory to my home directory, but after system restart, before login, this directory is not existing (in my case /run/usr/1000/gdm).

kokoko3k

Member

Registered: 2008-11-14

Posts: 2,473

Re: VNC directly to the login screen

Out of curiosity, why do you want a login screen and not a desktop environment?
Logically, a login screen is meant to authenticate and open sessions for all of the users. You can't expect to start a login manager without superuser privileges in first place.

If session resume is not needed, try the lightdm way i suggested.

-EDIT-
Oops, i'm sorry, i totally missed you're trying x11vnc and NOT Xvnc.
Please disregard what i said.

Last edited by kokoko3k (2020-02-28 09:37:23)

---

Help me to improve ssh-rdp !
Retroarch User? Try my koko-aio shader !