From: Lucio Chiappetti (lucio@mi.iasf.cnr.it)
Date: Wed Feb 19 2003 - 10:08:56 EST
Anyvody familiar with VNC on Alpha ? If so can you solve the following
problem ?
I want to use VNC to access a CDE display (inclusive of dtlogin) on a
"server" machine (I plan to remove the console screen of it when this
succeeds) from my "viewer" machine.
- The viewer machine currently has an old version of the OS (Digital Unix
3.2) and a 3.3.2 VNC binary distribution from the original ORL site
(which I always used).
- The server machine has a newer version of the OS (Tru64 4.0g)
recently installed and the 3.3.3r1 VNC binary distribution just
installed from
ftp://public.arl.arizona.edu/pub/sware/vnc-current_osf.tgz
(1) running a full CDE session
In the past I used my Unix VNC viewer to connect mainly to PC server
sessions started manually, or to NT sessions started in service mode
(i.e. passing thru a login screen), or to Unix (HPUX or Solaris) servers
started manually on the remote machine or via rsh (this means my
viewer "jumps in" a CDE session of the user who started the server).
Now I want to run the VNC server at boot, and that it displays the
dtlogin screen when I connect from the viewer.
I managed to do that as follows :
a) the VNC server shall be started as
vncserver -once -query servername:1
b) the xstartup file (in the /.vnc directory of root) shall be
a zero-size file
c) the /etc/dt/config/Xservers shall contain an additional line
besides the default one, in order to use XDMCP
:0 Local local@console /usr/bin/X11/X :0
:1 Local local@none XXX :1 YYY -once -query servername
d) here I am not really sure about what should go in the second
field (I wrote VNC instead of Local, but could write anything)
and also I am not sure about the third field (local@none)
YYY for me is -geometry 1268x1024 (the idea is that I could
run full screen as the two Alphas are identical)
XXX is /myownpath/myvncserver which is a copy of the vncserver
script where I commented out the lines in sub SanityCheck which
give trouble at boot
I tested the above by trial and errors, and apparently I am able to
connect with a viewer and get a nearly normal CDE login screen (no
dxconsole though).
I get the login mask, I can type the username and see it echoed
correctly (so AT THIS STAGE the keyboard works !!!), then type the
password (and it also is recognised since I am logged in). After that I
cannot work because of the following keyboard problem.
(2) keyboard problem
I can use the mouse in menus and graphical clients, but when I type
something in a terminal window (dxterm) in the VNC screen I get
rubbish : e.g. I type a and get 3, I type x and get 7, I type carriage
return and get a comma ....
... it is impossible to work !
I added to my root menu the "xev" and "dxkeycaps" programs. The latter
behaves funny (comes out with the kbd layout but with no text at all)
xev works, and it shows the same problem, e.g.
key "a" is keycode 38 keysim ox33 which gives "3".
Since I discovered that the numeric keypad numbers and enter key work,
I prepared some scripts called 1, 2, 3 etc.
One of them does a xmodmap -pk > file, and the other one issues the
xmodmap -display :1 /.dxkeycaps (which is the same command normally
issued by the .login procedure on the default display).
Issuing it explicitly on VNC display :1 has no effect to cure the
problem. Also the result of xmodmap -pk look similar when generated
in the VNC session, in a normal session on the new Alpha, or on
my old Alpha (there are some little differences but none affecting
the main keys ... the most noticeable and strange is that the first
line says "There are 4 KeySyms per KeyCode" on both cases on the new
Alpha, and "There are 2 KeySyms per KeyCode" on my old one !
I cannot swear that the problem with the keyboard has been always there.
I installed VNC on the 4.0g system last Friday, and I tested it very
quickly. I had the impression it worked, but cannot swear that I tried
to type something, or just tested opening and closing windows, changing
workspaces and other window manager functions.
I suspect it worked before I tried the tests to run a full CDE session
inclusive of login. Maybe there is something which went amiss and I
forgot to repristinate (despite of many reboots and xlogin stop/start).
I have no keyboard problem now during the VNC+dtlogin phase !!
But I have this keyboard problem even I start VNC at user level
on the server with
vncserver -nolisten local :1
and connect to it from the 3.2 machine as vncviewer servername:1
I do not have the problem if my viewer connects to a Solaris server
started in the same way. But connecting to the new server I have the
problem with any viewer on any machine, even a viewer on the same
machine as the server !!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lucio Chiappetti - IASF/CNR - via Bassini 15 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There are no news of scientific discoveries done by administration boards,
presidents or directors general"
L.Maiani - CERN & INFN - Corriere della Sera 06/02/2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more info : http://www.mi.iasf.cnr.it/~lucio/personal.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat Apr 12 2008 - 10:49:08 EDT