Bug 418372

Summary: VNC only works with monitor connected
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 11.0 Reporter: Martin Hildebrandt <martin.hildebrandt>
Component: X.OrgAssignee: Stefan Dirsch <sndirsch>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: E-mail List <xorg-maintainer-bugs>
Severity: Major    
Priority: P5 - None CC: martin.hildebrandt
Version: Final   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: openSUSE 11.0   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Customer Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description Martin Hildebrandt 2008-08-19 15:25:14 UTC
I'm setting up a NFS server and want it to run without monitor, keyboard, mouse attached. Administration shall take place via VNC,

This works just fine....
   as long as I have a monitor attached.

As soon as I start up the machine without a monitor on it the XServer fails (giving nasty error messages when I attach a monitor again) and VNC will only give me a grey checkered background.

Video chip is Intel 945G.

I've tried switching off monitor detection via Sax2 and in the xorg.conf ("NoDDC" and the like) but with no luck.

I think it should work out of the box, otherwise it doesn't make much sense to have a VNC-switch in Yast.

And it's probably not uncommon to run a machine with a cheap onboard graphic that's supposed to run without a monitor anyway....

- Martin Hildebrandt
Comment 1 Stefan Dirsch 2008-08-19 20:33:00 UTC
You don't need any hardware - neither a graphics card nor a monitor - to run Xvnc. This report is INVALID.

Looks like you're trying to use the VNC Xserver module together with a regular
Xserver hardware configuration. This is not recommended (unsecure!) and not a supported scenario. Since openSUSE 11.0 SaX2 no longer creates a configuration for it. Maybe I finally need to remove the VNC module from the openSUSE distribution. :-(
Comment 2 Martin Hildebrandt 2008-08-20 09:21:13 UTC
>> Looks like you're trying to use the VNC Xserver module together with a regular
>> Xserver hardware configuration. This is not recommended (unsecure!) and not a
>> supported scenario.

It´s the scenario that the installation produces automatically when I switch on "remote administration" while installing.

It´s been working this way for a lot of years and it would be a real disadvantage if it wouldn´t work anymore....

- MHi
Comment 3 Stefan Dirsch 2008-08-20 09:44:41 UTC
(In reply to comment #2 from Martin Hildebrandt)
> >> Looks like you're trying to use the VNC Xserver module together with a
> >> regular Xserver hardware configuration. This is not recommended
> >> (unsecure!) and not a supported scenario.
> 
> It´s the scenario that the installation produces automatically when I switch
> on "remote administration" while installing.

You are wrong. YaST enables the start of Xvnc, when connecting the machine
with a VNC client. This is completely unrelated to the VNC Xserver module.
Comment 4 Martin Hildebrandt 2008-08-20 11:09:44 UTC
>> You are wrong. YaST enables the start of Xvnc, when connecting the machine
>> with a VNC client. This is completely unrelated to the VNC Xserver module.

I can´t tell you, if it´s technically related. 

From a users point of view I can tell you the following:

I´ve just taken a machine with Suse 11.0 on it (clean install, no gadgets, nothing done on it so far) went to Yast2 and switched on remote administration.

That´s all.

After rebooting I can access the machine via http://192.168.161.50:5801 as long as a monitor is connected. 

When I reboot the (server) machine without a monitor, the same page being accessed from another PC in the same network while only give me a grey screen.

I don´t really mind if it´s unsecure. I´m only using it in an internal network and there´s nothing really valuable on it. 

But I would sure like it to work the same way it did under 10.1 i.e..

- MHi
Comment 5 Stefan Dirsch 2008-08-20 11:20:46 UTC
> After rebooting I can access the machine via http://192.168.161.50:5801 as
> long as a monitor is connected. 

This appears to be the connection to the VNC Xserver module. I suggest to follow the instructions in our VNC HOWTO instead to connect to Xvnc.

  http://en.opensuse.org/VNC_HOWTO