[LightDM] Configuring LightDM to not kill my session if VNC disconnects?

[Robert Ancell]

Hi Dawn,

LightDM uses Xvnc to allow VNC connections. The session is killed when Xvnc
quits, which is the same behaviour if any X server dies.

Xvnc quits if the TCP/IP connection is dropped, and I'm not currently aware
of it having any feature to allow re-connects (I don't know a lot about
Xvnc, so if someone does know more please let us know). If it did, we could
make use of that. I suspect based on my knowledge of VNC there's no method
of knowing a second TCP/IP connection is from the same user as the first.

So with the current technology I don't think it's possible, though it's a
very desirable feature from a user perspective.

--Robert


On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 at 19:42 Dawn Mew <dawn at prototeam.org> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I'm trying to set up a headless box that I can access via VNC, and then
> proceed to log into normally.
>
> I put the following into my lightdm.conf:
>
> [VNCServer]
> enabled=true
> command=/usr/bin/Xvnc -rfbauth /etc/vncpasswd
> port=5900
> width=1920
> height=1080
> depth=24
>
> ...And that works perfectly, except for one major problem: If I *ever*
> disconnect from the VNC, for any reason, my session and all running
> programs are immediately killed. Given the fragility of the internet
> (and yes, I'm tunneling over SSH, before anyone mentions VNC insecurity
> over the internet), I could be disconnected involuntarily at any time,
> not to mention the possibility of wanting to keep a program running
> indefinitely in a graphical session.
>
> So, um... how can I configure my system so that my session is locked or
> suspended when VNC disconnects, instead of being completely destroyed
> like that? (And if I can't, could this be considered as a new feature?
> This is a networked remote-access protocol, the idea that it /must/ kill
> everything in the entire session on disconnect would seem to really
> reduce the feature's usefulness and robustness.)
>
> Thank you!
>
> --Dawn
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> LightDM at lists.freedesktop.org
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