Q&A
My VNC session has frozen what should i do?
Best thing to do is kill the existing vncserver instances you have and then start a new one. SSH into the machine using Putty on windows or ssh from linux.
To kill them you need to work out what what instances are currently running. Stay with me - the following is a bit daunting initially but you will get the hang of it.
To do this I would type the following in a terminal:
ps aux | grep vnc
This gives:
aud007 13613 14.9 0.1 41408 23820 ? R May15 9025:14 Xvnc4 :1 -desktop oa-16-mel:1 (aud007) -auth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.Xauthority -geometry 1800x1000 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5901 -pn -fp usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/ -co /etc/X11/rgb
aud007 13624 0.0 0.0 4180 488 ? S May15 0:00 /bin/sh /etc/vnc/xstartup
gor171 17123 0.1 0.1 39596 21656 pts/10 S 10:50 0:00 Xvnc4 :3 -desktop oa-16-mel:3 (gor171) -auth /OSM/HOME-MEL/gor171/.Xauthority -geometry 1900x1000 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /OSM/HOME-MEL/gor171/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5903 -pn -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/ -co /etc/X11/rgb
gor171 17134 0.0 0.0 4180 576 pts/10 S 10:50 0:00 /bin/sh /etc/vnc/xstartup
gor171 19492 0.0 0.0 7844 860 pts/10 S+ 10:57 0:00 grep vnc
aud007 25366 6.9 0.1 38520 20492 ? S Jun05 2088:58 Xvnc4 :2 -desktop oa-16-mel:2 (aud007) -auth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.Xauthority -geometry 1800x1000 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5902 -pn -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/ -co /etc/X11/rgb
aud007 25377 0.0 0.0 4180 484 ? S Jun05 0:00 /bin/sh /etc/vnc/xstartup
I have highlighted the important bits.
aside:
ps aux will show you all processes currently running. Then the ‘|’ pipes or redirects the output of it to another process. In this case i’m passing it to ‘grep’ which will find lines in text matching a pattern and searching for the string ‘vnc’.
So the above output tells me that there are currently three vncserver sessions (Xvnc4) running. Number 1 and 2 are owned by you. And number 3 is owned by me.
If you just wanted to see the ones owned by you, you could use:
ps aux | grep vnc | grep aud007
aud007 13613 14.9 0.1 41408 23820 ? R May15 9030:09 Xvnc4 :1 -desktop oa-16-mel:1 (aud007) -auth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.Xauthority -geometry 1800x1000 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5901 -pn -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/ -co /etc/X11/rgb
aud007 13624 0.0 0.0 4180 488 ? S May15 0:00 /bin/sh /etc/vnc/xstartup
aud007 25366 6.9 0.1 42036 23924 ? S Jun05 2089:01 Xvnc4 :2 -desktop oa-16-mel:2 (aud007) -auth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.Xauthority -geometry 1800x1000 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /OSM/HOME-MEL/aud007/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5902 -pn -fp /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/,/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/ -co /etc/X11/rgb
aud007 25377 0.0 0.0 4180 484 ? S Jun05 0:00 /bin/sh /etc/vnc/xstartup
So this tells you that you should kill vncserver sessions 1 and 2. Do this using
vncserver -kill :1
vncserver -kill :2
man vncserver gives you information about this.
Then start a new session as per normal:
vncserver -geometry 1900x1000