VNC not working on Suse Linux guest (message VBoxVideo(0): VNC disabled)

[agiovacchini]

I have a SLEPOS machine which had a working VNC server but after installing guest additions I can't get the functionality back and Xorg.0.log says:

(II) GLX: Initialized DRISWRAST GL provider for screen 0 (II) VBoxVideo(0): Setting screen physical size to 211 x 158 (II) VBoxVideo(0): VNC disabled (II) XKB: reuse xkmfile /tmp/server-603B05CD50433F04F64C7B12280B8D7BC10853E0.xkm

Seems like VirtualBox driver turns off VNC.

[agiovacchini]

xorg.conf

[Michael Thayer]

Are you sure that you need Guest Additions on a VNC system? If you do decide you need non-X11 Additions functionality you could run "/etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11 cleanup" as root. Otherwise using the Virtualbox video driver instead of the VNC is probably expected behaviour.

[agiovacchini]

Replying to michael:

Are you sure that you need Guest Additions on a VNC system? If you do decide you need non-X11 Additions functionality you could run "/etc/init.d/vboxadd-x11 cleanup" as root. Otherwise using the Virtualbox video driver instead of the VNC is probably expected behaviour.

I'd like to have additions to have mouse not captured while using with the desktop of the hosting machine and vnc working for test automation (I use ruby-vnc for click automation).

I remember in the past I had Linux guests with vnc working, has it recently been disabled when guest additions are installed?

[Michael Thayer]

I cannot find that message "VNC disabled" by grepping in either the VirtualBox nor the standard X server source code. I am certainly not aware of vboxvideo doing anything that might be responsible, but if you tell me which VNC server software that is it might give me a clue.

[Michael Thayer]

It seems to be a SUSE patch to the X server, though apparently not originally written by them:

​https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file?file=xorg-server-xf4vnc.patch&package=xorg-x11-server&project=DISCONTINUED%3AopenSUSE%3A11.1%3AUpdate&rev=1aff75b4afa7b2ab881b605a8e3dd64e

Perhaps you should ask SUSE?

[Michael Thayer]

I took a quick look at that patch and the upstream original<1> and identified a reason it might not be working with vboxvideo. I will provide a link to a modified version of the Guest Additions later today.

<1> ​http://xf4vnc.sourceforge.net/

[agiovacchini]

Replying to michael:

I took a quick look at that patch and the upstream original<1> and identified a reason it might not be working with vboxvideo. I will provide a link to a modified version of the Guest Additions later today.

<1> ​http://xf4vnc.sourceforge.net/

Thank you!

[Michael Thayer]

Try this:

https://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.3.9-92579.iso

[agiovacchini]

Replying to michael:

Try this:

https://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.3.9-92579.iso

I've installed this version and now under /opt I see the 4.3.9 additions folder but still get the VNC Disabled message in Xorg.0.log

[Michael Thayer]

I'm sorry, but I will not have time to investigate this in the foreseeable future. If someone else can precisely identify the problem it should be possible to fix it of course.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.