vncserver(1) TightVNC vncserver(1)NAME
vncserver - a wrapper to launch an X server for VNC.
SYNOPSIS
vncserver [:display] [-geometry widthxheight] [-depth depth] [-pixelformat rgbNNN|bgrNNN] [-name desktop-name] [Xvnc-options...]
vncserver -kill :display
vncserver -help
DESCRIPTION
vncserver is a wrapper script for Xvnc, the free X server for VNC (Virtual Network Computing). It provides all capabilities of a standard X
server, but does not connect to a display for itself. Instead, Xvnc creates a virtual desktop you can view or control remotely using a VNC
viewer.
OPTIONS
You can add Xvnc options at the command line. They will be added to the invocation of Xvnc without changes. The options provided by the
vncserver itself are as follows:
:display
The display number to use. If omitted, the next free display number is used.
-geometry widthxheight
Set desktop width and height.
-depth depth
Set the colour depth of the visual to provide, in bits per pixel. Must be a value between 8 and 32.
-pixelformat rgbNNN|bgrNNN
Set colour format for pixels representation. The viewer can do the conversion to any other pixel format, but it is faster if the
depth and pixel format of the server is the same as the equivalent values on the viewer display.
-name string
This specifies the name of the desktop.
-kill :display
Stops the session running on the specified display.
-help Prints a short usage notice to stderr.
EXAMPLES
vncserver
Invokes Xvnc on the next available display and with suitable defaults.
vncserver :1
Invokes Xvnc on display :1.
vncserver -geometry 800x600 -depth 16 :1
Invokes Xvnc on display :1 with desktop size of 800x600 pixels and color depth of 16 bits per pixel.
vncserver -kill :1
Shuts down Xvnc server on display :1.
SEE ALSO Xvnc(1), vncviewer(1), vncpasswd(1), vncconnect(1)AUTHORS
Original VNC was developed in AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. TightVNC additions were implemented by Constantin Kaplinsky. Many other people
participated in development, testing and support.
Man page authors:
Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>,
Tim Waugh <twaugh@redhat.com>,
Constantin Kaplinsky <const@tightvnc.com>
August 2006 vncserver(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
vncserver(1) Virtual Network Computing vncserver(1)NAME
vncserver - start or stop a VNC server
SYNOPSIS
vncserver [:display#] [-name desktop-name] [-geometry widthxheight] [-depth depth] [-pixelformat format] [-fp font-path] [-fg] [-autokill]
[Xvnc-options...]
vncserver -kill :display#
DESCRIPTION
vncserver is used to start a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) desktop. vncserver is a Perl script which simplifies the process of starting
an Xvnc server. It runs Xvnc with appropriate options and starts a window manager on the VNC desktop.
vncserver can be run with no options at all. In this case it will choose the first available display number (usually :1), start Xvnc with
that display number, and start the default window manager in the Xvnc session. You can also specify the display number, in which case vnc-
server will attempt to start Xvnc with that display number and exit if the display number is not available. For example:
vncserver :13
Editing the file $HOME/.vnc/xstartup allows you to change the applications run at startup (but note that this will not affect an existing
VNC session.)
OPTIONS
You can get a list of options by passing -h as an option to vncserver. In addition to the options listed below, any unrecognised options
will be passed to Xvnc - see the Xvnc man page, or "Xvnc -help", for details.
-name desktop-name
Each VNC desktop has a name which may be displayed by the viewer. The desktop name defaults to "host:display# (username)", but you
can change it with this option. The desktop name option is passed to the xstartup script via the $VNCDESKTOP environment variable,
which allows you to run a different set of applications depending on the name of the desktop.
-geometry widthxheight
Specify the size of the VNC desktop to be created. Default is 1024x768.
-depth depth
Specify the pixel depth (in bits) of the VNC desktop to be created. Default is 24. Other possible values are 8, 15 and 16 - any-
thing else is likely to cause strange behaviour by applications.
-pixelformat format
Specify pixel format for Xvnc to use (BGRnnn or RGBnnn). The default for depth 8 is BGR233 (meaning the most significant two bits
represent blue, the next three green, and the least significant three represent red), the default for depth 16 is RGB565, and the
default for depth 24 is RGB888.
-cc 3 As an alternative to the default TrueColor visual, this allows you to run an Xvnc server with a PseudoColor visual (i.e. one which
uses a color map or palette), which can be useful for running some old X applications which only work on such a display. Values
other than 3 (PseudoColor) and 4 (TrueColor) for the -cc option may result in strange behaviour, and PseudoColor desktops must have
an 8-bit depth.
-kill :display#
This kills a VNC desktop previously started with vncserver. It does this by killing the Xvnc process, whose process ID is stored in
the file "$HOME/.vnc/host:display#.pid". The -kill option ignores anything preceding the first colon (":") in the display argument.
Thus, you can invoke "vncserver -kill $DISPLAY", for example at the end of your xstartup file after a particular application exits.
-list Lists running VNC servers.
-fp font-path
If the vncserver script detects that the X Font Server (XFS) is running, it will attempt to start Xvnc and configure Xvnc to use XFS
for font handling. Otherwise, if XFS is not running, the vncserver script will attempt to start Xvnc and allow Xvnc to use its own
preferred method of font handling (which may be a hard-coded font path or, on more recent systems, a font catalog.) In any case, if
Xvnc fails to start, the vncserver script will then attempt to determine an appropriate X font path for this system and start Xvnc
using that font path.
The -fp argument allows you to override the above fallback logic and specify a font path for Xvnc to use.
-fg Runs Xvnc as a foreground process. This has two effects: (1) The VNC server can be aborted with CTRL-C, and (2) the VNC server will
exit as soon as the user logs out of the window manager in the VNC session. This may be necessary when launching TigerVNC from
within certain grid computing environments.
-autokill
Automatically kill Xvnc whenever the xstartup script exits. In most cases, this has the effect of terminating Xvnc when the user
logs out of the window manager.
FILES
Several VNC-related files are found in the directory $HOME/.vnc:
$HOME/.vnc/xstartup
A shell script specifying X applications to be run when a VNC desktop is started. If this file does not exist, then vncserver will
create a default xstartup script which attempts to launch your chosen window manager.
$HOME/.vnc/passwd
The VNC password file.
$HOME/.vnc/host:display#.log
The log file for Xvnc and applications started in xstartup.
$HOME/.vnc/host:display#.pid
Identifies the Xvnc process ID, used by the -kill option.
SEE ALSO vncviewer(1), vncpasswd(1), vncconfig(1), Xvnc(1)
http://www.tigervnc.org
AUTHOR
Tristan Richardson, RealVNC Ltd.
D. R. Commander
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 participated in development, testing and support.
TigerVNC 13 Mar 2011 vncserver(1)