VNC Server on Box2

[Ken Causey]

Jason,

Here is what I ended up doing after talking to Radoslav and Jecel on
IRC. I setup tighvncserver and the minimal X setup to support it.
Here's what I did to get a working Squeak that I could connect and
disconnect from.

1.  Login to box2 with ssh.

2.  Run the server once to get the basic local configuration started:

 a. tightvncserver (it will ask you for a password to use and setup
~/.vnc/)

 b. (Note the display number it states when it starts, I think this will
vary depending on the user and how many other servers are running, but
I'm not sure.)

   tightvncserver -kill :1 (substitute the appropriate display number
for the 1 here)

3.  Now edit ~/.vnc/xstartup and add something like

    squeakvm ~/Squeak3.8-6665.image &
  
as the last line.

4.  Start the server again

    tightvncserver

At this point you should be able to connect from your workstation with

    xtightvnc box2.squeakfoundation.org:1  (again substitute the
appropriate display number)

It should then ask for your password and then you should be connected.
There is no WM so this is no frills but you can ask Squeak to fullscreen
itself and then other than the display delays it looks just like a local
Squeak.  You can close the window and the Squeak process keeps running
and you can reconnect at will.

This seems to do the job in my opinion.

Ken


On Tue, 2005-09-13 at 09:56 -0400, Jason Rogers wrote:
> On 09/12/2005 06:53 PM, Ken Causey apparently said:
> 
> ><jrogers> Ken - I was wondering what the feasibility is of getting a VNC
> >server set up on box2
> >
> >My first reponse to this is why you don't use
> >http://map1.squeakfoundation.org/sm/package/d4f692a8-c7fa-4d49-927f-74aba7e8fd83 (RemoteFrameBuffer).  My understanding is that this was what was done in the past for the website image and similar setups.  To my knowledge setting up a VNC server otherwise doesn't make any sense for box2 because box2 has not windowing system of any kind.  There is no view to relay over the network.
> >  
> >
> We tried that with the current website image.  The problem is that when 
> we have problems with the image hanging or some such nonsense we need to 
> get into the image and see what is going wrong, only at these times the 
> RFB server doesn't respond either.  So, I end up having to kill the 
> process and relaunch the image.  This has made for many headaches.  I 
> don't seem to be able to reproduce the issues outside of the production 
> environment, so when the image hangs I really need to "get in" and see 
> what's going on.
> 
> I understand your reluctance to install an X system and window manager, 
> but it seems to be the only feasible answer.  So, with that in mind 
> would you be willing to install a minimalistic window manager and X 
> system (WM, FluxBox, OpenBox, etc. are all pretty lightweight and should 
> suit our purposes).  Thanks.
> 
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