CentOS 5.8 VNC monitor

[tkraeuss]

Hi,

I am so sorry, that I also have to start with the words I am a Newby with CentOS and Linux.

I have a couple of production equipment that use CentOS 5.8. I want to install / use VNC. I found a lot of tutorials that help me with that and the VNC connection itself works. But if I am connected via VNC I see screen that is not the screen as on the production equipment. So, I think I have to set up a monitor for the VNC. This topic what I found in the search also said that. But I don't know how to do it or is if this is the right solution.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=22449&p=205641&hilit=vnc#p205641

Maybe some of you can help me with the right direction.

Thank,
Toby

[TrevorH]

Your first job is to get rid of that system. CentOS 5 died in 2017 so you are going on 6 years without any security patches - and there have been some doozies in the last 6 years. You're not even running the most recent version of a dead operating system, you're running 5.8 which dates from 2012 so you're more than 10 years of security patches missing. If that system is exposed to the outside world at all then it probably doesn't belong to you any more

The way that vnc works is that it gives you a new desktop. It does not give you access to the same desktop you would see at the local console. For that you need something like xrdp but your chances of finding any packages available for CentOS 5 that are not already installed are slim.

Honestly, your best course of action is to find out what these systems do and set up a brand new system running something that's still in support, set up teh same services on that, copy over the data and then switch off the old ones.

[jlehtone]

Honestly, your best course of action is to find out what these systems do and set up a brand new system running something that's still in support, set up teh same services on that, copy over the data and then switch off the old ones.

Quite possibly equivalent, rather than same services. But yes, this is the way.


The "newby" and "has a decade old system" is a fascinating combo that often means the system to be inherited -- initially configured by some other user. That makes the "find out what these systems do" even more challenging than a "I kind of know what I did back then" case.

[tkraeuss]

Thank you for your replies.

Unfortunatelythis is an old equipment that was delivered 10years ago. But also newer equipment's are delivered with this version of CentOS. I think the manufacture never updates it, as long it is running. The equipment in an own safe network (no option to connect to the internet), so we will not have any issues with security (but it is possible).

An update of CentOS is not working, because the user interface, sensors and all this stuff will not work after that. I know from another costumer of that manufacture that they had a option to use VNC, so I think there must be an option.

The way that vnc works is that it gives you a new desktop. It does not give you access to the same desktop you would see at the local console. For that you need something like xrdp but your chances of finding any packages available for CentOS 5 that are not already installed are slim.

OK, that makes sense.

I uncomment the two lines in ~/.vnc/xstartup

• *unset SESSION_MANAGER
  *exec /etc/x11/xinit/initrc

I also take a look into Xclients and see that there is a check for /etc/sysconfig/desktop. In this file I see that DESKTOP="". Can this with a change a easy solution or as you said, I need something like xrdp? Are there other packages that I can check, if it is already installed?

X11 will not help in this case, right?

Thanks
Tobias

[TrevorH]

Sorry but CentOS 5 is dead. You cannot even get Red Hat support for RHEL 5 any more, not even by paying for it.

[tkraeuss]

Sorry but CentOS 5 is dead. You cannot even get Red Hat support for RHEL 5 any more, not even by paying for it.

Thank you, but that don't help me or answering my questions