The following simple guide help you to setup the VNC server using xinetd on RHEL 7/CentOS 7 machines, VNC help to share the desktop with the other machines which has a client installed. VNC server and client are not installed by default, you need to setup the vnc server manually.
Before installing the VNC server, install Gnome desktop.
Install the tigervnc server, X11 fonts and xinetd.
yum install tigervnc-server xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 xinetd
Enable the XDMCP.
vi /etc/gdm/custom.conf
Add the following content.
[security] AllowRemoteRoot=true DisallowTCP=false [xdmcp] Enable=true MaxSessions=30
Create Xinetd service.
vi /etc/xinetd.d/vncserver
Place the following content on the above file.
service vncserver
{
disable = no
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
group = tty
wait = no
user = nobody
server = /usr/bin/Xvnc
server_args = -inetd -query localhost -geometry 1024×768 -depth 16 -once -fp /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc -securitytypes=none
}
Create VNC service.
vi /etc/services
Add the following line at the end of file.
vncserver 5900/tcp # VNC and GDM
Restart xinetd service
systemctl restart xinetd.service
Add firewall rules to allow the VNC connection, the following rule is set as per the port-offset mentioned in the previous step.
firewall-cmd --permanent --zone=public --add-port=5900/tcp firewall-cmd --reload
Reboot the machine, if required.
reboot
Use VNC viewer to connect.
ipaddress:5900
I have used this configuration extensively with CentOS 6.5 and prior. I’m not getting this configuration to work and some things don’t add up. First the -fp /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc is not required, it doesn’t exist given the commands you have provide. Second, a “greeter” specification is needed /etc/gdm/custom.conf. The greeter (RemoteGreeter=/usr/libexec/gdm-simple-greeter) that used to ship in CentOS 6.5, and prior, doesn’t exist in CentOS 7.
You are installing the tigervnc server, but xinetd calls the system Xvnc which is part of the OS Gnome Desktop.
I believe the key element missing in CentOS 7 is the greeter application. As near as I can tell tigervnc-server doesn’t fill any void in that respect.
Perhaps your intent is to have xinetd serve only as a bridge to tigervnc-server configured in a classic user-by-user config?
Ok Raj I see your prior (7/25/14) post on the tiger vncserver setup and it seems the xinetd configuration that you are showing here inserts xinetd into that “single user” or “user-by-user” tiger vncserver configuration.
The configuration that I described in my prior post allows for a general user login, just like you would get on the console, without user-by-user vnc configuration. This is a hugely valuable remote access config that I haven’t yet figured out how to get working on CentOS 7.
Brent,
I am trying to do the same thing with RHEL 7. I too, have been able to set up GDM/VNC for RHEL 4, RHEL 5, and RHEL 6 where the GDM Greeter screen is presented as the first VNC screen. When I attempt access to RHEL7 with a VNC client, I just get a black screen with an X. I’ve set up /etc/gdm/custom.conf as described, the F/W is off, and I have xinetd installed (just like I have done for RHEL 4, 5, & 6). Any ideas how to get the GDM Greeter to work for RHEL 7 (or CentOS 7)?
Regards,
Bret
Hi guys,
As far as I could discover there is a difference in the package gdm for i686 and x86_64. Could some confirm if those instructions is for the 32bits or for the 64bits ?
At least for Fedora 23, I saw that the 64 bits pack does not have the greeter application.
This is for 64 bit