NAME¶

tigervncsession - start a VNC server

SYNOPSIS¶

tigervncsession <username> <:display#>

DESCRIPTION¶

tigervncsession is used to start a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) desktop. tigervncsession performs all the necessary steps to create a new user session, run Xtigervnc with appropriate options and starts a window manager on the VNC desktop.

tigervncsession is rarely called directly and is normally started by the system service manager.

FILES¶

Several VNC-related files are found in the directory ~/.vnc:

/etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults

The optional system-wide equivalent of ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf. If this file exists and defines options to be passed to Xtigervnc, they will be used as defaults for users. The user's ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf overrides settings configured in this file. The overall configuration file load order is: this file, ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf, and then /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-mandatory. None are required to exist.

/etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-mandatory

The optional system-wide equivalent of ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf. If this file exists and defines options to be passed to Xtigervnc, they will override any of the same options defined in a user's ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf. This file offers a mechanism to establish some basic form of system-wide policy. WARNING! There is nothing stopping users from constructing their own tigervncsession-like script that calls Xtigervnc directly to bypass any options defined in /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-mandatory. The overall configuration file load order is: /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults, ~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf, and then this file. None are required to exist.

~/.vnc/tigervnc.conf

An optional server config file wherein options to be passed to Xtigervnc are listed to avoid hard-coding them to the physical invocation. This file uses perl(1) syntax. The special option session can be used to control which session type will be started. This should match one of the files in /usr/share/xsessions. E.g., if there is a file called gnome.desktop, then $session="gnome"; would use that session type.

To be compatible with the upstream provided wrapper scripts, we will fall back to trying to load configuration from ~/.vnc/config if tigervnc.conf is not present. The ~/.vnc/config file lists options one per line. Options without an argument are listed as a single word, for example: "localhost" or "alwaysshared". For those requiring an argument, separate the option from the argument with an equal sign, for example, "session=gnome", "geometry=2000x1200", or "securitytypes=VncAuth,TLSVnc".

~/.vnc/passwd

The VNC password file.

~/.vnc/host:display#.log

The log file for Xtigervnc and the session.

SEE ALSO¶

xtigervncviewer(1), tigervncpasswd(1), tigervncconfig(1), Xtigervnc(1)
https://www.tigervnc.org

AUTHOR¶

Tristan Richardson, RealVNC Ltd., D. R. Commander and others.

VNC was originally developed by the RealVNC team while at Olivetti Research Ltd / AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. TightVNC additions were implemented by Constantin Kaplinsky. Many other people have since participated in development, testing and support. This manual is part of the TigerVNC software suite.