After upgrade/update no longer able to establish a connection through VNC.

This document (7009718) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP1

Situation

After an upgrade or update, attempting to connect to the system through a web browser or a VNC client will fail. No graphics are displayed.

A LAN trace will show that the TCP connection is established but is then immediately terminated by the server.

Resolution

One of the parameters being used to launch Xvnc from xinetd is "-from localhost". For some unknown reason (at this time) some systems are failing to bind (for the vnc server only) to "localhost". There are two ways to work around the problem.

In both cases you will need to edit the following file (as the root user) using vi, or gedit, or whatever editor you prefer:

/etc/xinetd.d/vnc

Once you have the file open for editing locate the section for "service vnc1". It should look similar to this:

service vnc1
{
   socket_type     = stream
   protocol        = tcp
   wait            = no
   user            = nobody
   server          = /usr/bin/Xvnc
   server_args     = -noreset -inetd -once -from localhost -query localhost -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16
   type            = UNLISTED
   port            = 5901
}

do one of the following to the entries in "server_args":

1. Change "-from localhost" to "-from 127.0.0.1".
Or
2. Remove the "-from localhost" parameter completely.

Repeat the change for "service vnc2" and "service vnc3" then save the file.

Finally, restart the xinetd service so that the change will be recognized by running the command "rcxinetd restart" and try the VNC connection again.

Disclaimer

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