I don’t normally use vncserver, I prefer SSH X11 tunneling/forwarding due to it’s inherited security, but sometimes there have been issues with X11/SSH and it’s nice to know an alternative. This quick how-to is meant for an Oracle DBA looking for a quick way to run GUI tools from the Oracle stack, such as runInstaller, dbca, dbua, etc.. It is not meant to serve as a step by step guide to setup a secure, reusable vncserver setup in your environment, I do however provide some additional references where you can find additional information (see the end of this post).
Lets get to it then — the good news is that vncserver should already be installed on your RHEL / OEL. All you have to do is start it up and tell it the display number like so:
[root@rac1 ~]# su - oracle
rac1.XRACP1-> vncserver :12
You will require a password to access your desktops.
Password:
Verify:
New 'rac1.mydomain.com:12 (oracle)' desktop is rac1.mydomain.com:12
Creating default startup script /u01/app/oracle/.vnc/xstartup
Starting applications specified in /u01/app/oracle/.vnc/xstartup
Log file is/u01/app/oracle/.vnc/rac1.mydomain.com:12.log
rac1.XRACP1-> ps -ef | grep vnc
oracle 31123 1 0 13:04 pts/1 00:00:00 Xvnc :12 -desktop rac1.mydomain.com:12 (oracle) -httpd /usr/share/vnc/classes -auth /u01/app/oracle/.Xauthority -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /u01/app/oracle/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5912 -pn
oracle 31158 1 0 13:04 pts/1 00:00:00 vncconfig -iconic
oracle 32309 31078 0 13:05 pts/1 00:00:00 grep vnc
rac1.XRACP1->
If you want to kill vncserver use “vncserver -kill :12” command where :12 is the display number you specified when starting it:
vncserver -kill :12
rac1.XRACP1-> ps -ef | grep vnc
oracle 9597 1 1 17:50 pts/3 00:00:00 Xvnc :12 -desktop rac1.mydomain.com:12 (oracle) -httpd /usr/share/vnc/classes -auth /u01/app/oracle/.Xauthority -geometry 1024x768 -depth 16 -rfbwait 30000 -rfbauth /u01/app/oracle/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5912 -pn
oracle 10065 1 0 17:50 pts/3 00:00:00 vncconfig -iconic
oracle 10303 9514 0 17:50 pts/3 00:00:00 grep vnc
rac1.XRACP1-> vncserver -kill :12
Killing Xvnc process ID 9597
rac1.XRACP1-> ps -ef | grep vnc
oracle 14396 9514 0 17:52 pts/3 00:00:00 grep vnc
rac1.XRACP1->
That’s all to it, next you can access the display via http://host:58XX where XX is the screen number you specified when starting the vncserver:
http://rac1.mydomain.com:5812
REFERENCE:
Note: 551711.1 Linux OS Service ‘vncserver’
Note: 735767.1 How to Setup VNC Server with Clipboard Support on RHEL/OEL
APRESS Book: Linux Recipes for Oracle DBAs
Vitaliy Mogilevskiy September 16, 2009
Posted In: Linux, Operations
Tags: vncserver