[SOLVED] Trying to connect into another local user with VNC/RDP

[pearl rivet]

Hello everyone !
Recently have swapped to a vanilla arch running on Plasma KDE.
I am looking to access a secondary local user on the same host through either rdp/vnc. I had tried rdp but i had a blackscreen and ended up losing connection half a second after pressing connect and confirming the certificate (was using KRDC).

I got recommended to use VNC with TigerVNC, however, i ended up having a permanent black screen after the "Plasma Powered by KDE" loading screen. I had tried anything to fix this issue but nothing worked,
I was using "vncserver :1" on the local user i was trying to log into, and logged with tigervnc, but it just happened to have the issue i stated above.
I had tried many other things with VNC but it ended up having the same issue over and over again.

If anyone knows how to do this, whether it is by the use of VNC/RDP (i don't care which one i need to use as long as it works in the long run), i'll be glad to learn how to get it working, or eventually fix my TigerVNC issue.
Thanks in advance !

[flint jasper]

You ignored the litany. Provide logs. It could be because it lacks proper D-Bus session and compositor initialization. Install krdp, enable remote desktop in the settings app while logged into the secondary user, and connect via RDP.

[pearl rivet]

Currently am on X11, tried to install KRDP, but it doesn't seem to appear in the system settings app, is it a wayland exclusive app ?
I'm very new to this and i don't really know what does what, i'm trying to learn but the massive amount of information makes it all the more complicated..

[flint jasper]

use krfb if youre on x11. if you prefer tigervnc edit ~/.vnc/xstartup and add exec startplasma-x11 and make that file executable as well with chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup

[pearl rivet]

I'll try tigervnc again since kfrb doesn't have many settings and seems kinda annoying to use-
I gotta do all this as my secondary user correct ?

[flint jasper]

yeah, you need to configure and execute it under the second user's env. switch to that user in your terminal, create and edit ~/.vnc/xstartup file there, make it executable and then run vncserver :1 as that user

[pearl rivet]

I had tried that and a bunch of things, at work currently, will provide logs and what my xstartup file looks like once I'm home

I do remember that i had a bunch of issues with "artifacts" of my root user in XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and other stuff aka /run/user/1000 instead of 1001

Tried to fix that but ended up going to sleep before managing to fully fix..

[flint jasper]

don't use su or sudo to switch users because they keep the parent's env variables. use machinectl shell username or ssh into that user to localhost for an isolated pam session. and this makes systemd-logind set correct XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to /run/user/1001 before you execute vncserver

[pearl rivet]

Oh so that's what i was doing wrong... i knew sudo was keeping the parent's env var but not su.

[pearl rivet]

You're actually my life savior, thank you SO MUCH
I had to fully clear vnc configs as it was stuck on openbox-session for testing purposes:
for anyone having the same issue as me (while also being stuck on anything else than x11plasma):

sudo rm -f /etc/tigervnc/vncserver-config-defaults```

Then use ```sudo machinectl shell --uid=[USER] # [User] being the account you want to connect into

Then do vncpasswd, set your password.

once password is set, make sure that your ~/.vnc/xstartup contains exec startplasma-x11 if not, add it and save it.

run this command to make it executable chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup

then vncserver :[DISPLAY] (e.g. vncserver :1)

Run tigervnc then connect to localhost:5901

Enter the password from vncpasswd

And it should work

[weary sorrel]

vtwk received a thank you cookie!

[pearl rivet]

[SOLVED] Trying to connect into another local user with VNC/RDP

[pearl rivet]

I have met another issue, trying to use an X11 app but it wasn't starting in the vncserver, i dug into it and the command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE tells me tty instead of X11

[flint jasper]

add export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11 above exec startplasma-x11 in ~/.vnc/xstartup