At present I have no problem with my Manjaro machine’s VNC server, That is, I have had daily VNC sessions into it for a couple years.
But the output from journalctl --boot=0 --no-pager --priority=warning..crit gives me:
Apr 03 12:00:33 jar-d vncsession[1183]: ~/.vnc is deprecated, please consult 'man vncsession' for paths to migrate to.
As instructed there, I used man vncsession and got (relevantly): Several VNC-related files are found in the directory $HOME/.config/tigervnc:. (Or see the bottom of this post for the full output.)
The new location, i.e., ~/.config/tigervnc, does not exist in my system.
The deprecated one, i.e. ~/.vnc, looks like this:
[luna@jar-d .vnc]$ ls -al
total 108
drwx------ 3 luna luna 4096 Apr 3 12:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 22 luna luna 4096 Apr 3 15:26 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 luna luna 157 May 19 2023 config.bak
drwx------ 2 luna luna 4096 Jun 17 2023 config.d
-rw-r--r-- 1 luna luna 50678 Apr 3 15:35 jar-d:1.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 luna luna 6583 Apr 3 11:38 jar-d:1.log.old
-rw-r--r-- 1 luna luna 9776 May 19 2023 jar:1.log
-rw------- 1 luna luna 8 May 19 2023 passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 luna luna 1489 Jun 17 2023 vncviewer.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 luna luna 1489 Jun 17 2023 vncviewer.log.bak
-rwxr-xr-x 1 luna luna 85 Jul 14 2023 xstartup
[luna@jar-d .vnc]$
QUESTION:
- Should I move all contents of
~/.vncto~/.config/tigervnc? - What would happen if I didn’t? Would VNC stop working one day when the app decided it was time to stop honoring the legacy location? Can’t the app just move it on its own? What are people supposed to do who don’t have a habit of running
journalctl? Are you supposed to run it once in a while (even without seeing any obvious sign of trouble) for a smooth operation of a Linux machine? (If I tried to respond to all the--priority=warning..critstuff, I might do nothing else in life.)
What follows is the full output from man vncsession.
vncsession(8) Virtual Network Computing vncsession(8)
NAME
vncsession - start a VNC server
SYNOPSIS
vncsession [-D] <username> <:display#>
DESCRIPTION
vncsession is used to start a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) desktop. vncsession
performs all the necessary steps to create a new user session, run Xvnc with ap‐
propriate options and starts a window manager on the VNC desktop.
vncsession is rarely called directly and is normally started by the system service
manager.
-D OPTION
vncsession by default forks and detaches. If the -D option is used, it does not
fork and detach. This option is provided for use with system service managers that
require services to run in the foreground. This option is not intended for debug‐
ging in a login shell from a terminal or for running vncsession from a terminal as
an ordinary user.
FILES
Several VNC-related files are found in the directory $HOME/.config/tigervnc:
/etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults
The optional system-wide equivalent of $HOME/.config/tigervnc/config. If
this file exists and defines options to be passed to Xvnc, they will be
used as defaults for users. The user's $HOME/.config/tigervnc/config over‐
rides settings configured in this file. The overall configuration file load
order is: this file, $HOME/.config/tigervnc/config, and then
/etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-mandatory. None are required to exist.
/etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-mandatory
The optional system-wide equivalent of $HOME/.config/tigervnc/config. If
this file exists and defines options to be passed to Xvnc, they will over‐
ride any of the same options defined in a user's $HOME/.con‐
fig/tigervnc/config. This file offers a mechanism to establish some basic
form of system-wide policy. WARNING! There is nothing stopping users from
constructing their own vncsession-like script that calls Xvnc directly to
bypass any options defined in /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-mandatory. The
overall configuration file load order is: /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-
defaults, $HOME/.config/tigervnc/config, and then this file. None are re‐
quired to exist.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tigervnc/config
$HOME/.config/tigervnc/config
An optional server config file wherein options to be passed to Xvnc are
listed to avoid hard-coding them to the physical invocation. List options
in this file one per line. For those requiring an argument, simply separate
the option from the argument with an equal sign, for example: "geome‐
try=2000x1200" or "securitytypes=vncauth,tlsvnc". Options without an argu‐
ment are simply listed as a single word, for example: "localhost" or "al‐
waysshared".
The special option session can be used to control which session type will
be started. This should match one of the files in /usr/share/xsessions.
E.g. if there is a file called "gnome.desktop", then "session=gnome" would
be set to use that session type.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tigervnc/passwd
$HOME/.config/tigervnc/passwd
The VNC password file.
$XDG_STATE_HOME/tigervnc/Bhost:Bdisplay#.log
$HOME/.local/state/tigervnc/Bhost:Bdisplay#.log
The log file for Xvnc and the session.
SEE ALSO
vncviewer(1), vncpasswd(1), vncconfig(1), Xvnc(1)
https://www.tigervnc.org
AUTHOR
Tristan Richardson, RealVNC Ltd., D. R. Commander and others.
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 have since participated in development, testing and
support. This manual is part of the TigerVNC software suite.
TigerVNC