unix/vncserver.man

.TH vncserver 1 "26 Mar 2009" "TigerVNC" "Virtual Network Computing"
.SH NAME
vncserver \- start or stop a VNC server
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B vncserver
.RI [: display# ]
.RB [ \-name
.IR desktop-name ]
.RB [ \-geometry
.IR width x height ]
.RB [ \-depth
.IR depth ]
.RB [ \-pixelformat
.IR format ]
.RB [ \-fp
.IR font-path ]
.RI [ Xvnc-options... ]
.br
.BI "vncserver \-kill :" display#
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B vncserver
is used to start a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) desktop.
.B 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.

.B 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 vncserver will attempt to start
Xvnc with that display number and exit if the display number is not
available.  For example:

.RS
vncserver :13
.RE

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.)

.SH OPTIONS
You can get a list of options by passing \fB\-h\fP 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.

.TP
.B \-name \fIdesktop-name\fP
Each VNC desktop has a name which may be displayed by the viewer. The desktop
name defaults to "\fIhost\fP:\fIdisplay#\fP (\fIusername\fP)", 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.

.TP
.B \-geometry \fIwidth\fPx\fIheight\fP
Specify the size of the VNC desktop to be created. Default is 1024x768. 

.TP
.B \-depth \fIdepth\fP
Specify the pixel depth (in bits) of the VNC desktop to be created. Default is
24.  Other possible values are 8, 15 and 16 - anything else is likely to cause
strange behaviour by applications.

.TP
.B \-pixelformat \fIformat\fP
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.

.TP
.B \-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.

.TP
.B \-kill :\fIdisplay#\fP
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/\fIhost\fP:\fIdisplay#\fP.pid".  The
.B \-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.

.TP
.B \-fp \fIfont-path\fP
The vncserver script will normally examine your system to figure out where it
stores its X11 fonts and then generate an appropriate font path argument for
Xvnc based on this.  If your system stores its X11 fonts in a location that
vncserver does not know about, however, then this may fail.  In that case,
vncserver will then try to contact the local X Font Server (xfs) on port 7100.
Not all systems have xfs installed and running, so this may fail as well.  In
that case, you can manually specify a font path by using the
.B \-fp
argument to vncserver.

If you prefer to use the X Font Server by default rather than a static font
path, then you can run

.RS
.RS
vncserver -fp unix/:7100
.RE
.RE

.SH FILES
Several VNC-related files are found in the directory $HOME/.vnc:
.TP
$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.
.TP
$HOME/.vnc/passwd
The VNC password file.
.TP
$HOME/.vnc/\fIhost\fP:\fIdisplay#\fP.log
The log file for Xvnc and applications started in xstartup.
.TP
$HOME/.vnc/\fIhost\fP:\fIdisplay#\fP.pid
Identifies the Xvnc process ID, used by the
.B \-kill
option.

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR vncviewer (1),
.BR vncpasswd (1),
.BR vncconfig (1),
.BR Xvnc (1)
.br
http://www.tigervnc.org

.SH AUTHOR
Tristan Richardson, RealVNC Ltd.
.br
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.