Why does vncserver fail when run from a service
I have a VNC setup using TigerVNC and noVNC on my linux machine (Ubuntu 20.4). It works perfectly when started it from terminal but I want to start it from a service so that it can auto start on boot however it is not working
My service file name '[email protected]' located at /etc/systemd/system looks like this
[Unit]
Description = VNC server
After=syslog.target network.target
[Service]
Type=forking
User=taisafmr15
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :2
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver :2 -geometry 1600x900 -depth 24 -localhost no
ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :2
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
I can enable my service using
sudo systemctl enable [email protected]
And It starts without any error
same for starting it
sudo systemctl start [email protected]
However my vnc server don't start, running
sudo systemctl status [email protected]
shows that it failed (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
looking into logs it shows it failed on ExecStart and the only error code / message I see is this (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)
However when I run that command normally from my terminal my vnc server starts fine just not from a service,
Struggling with for days
Any help / recommendation would be helpful
EDIT:
My xstartup file at ~/.vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh
[-x /etc/vnc/xstartup] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[-r $HOME/.Xresources] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
My xstartup file at /etc/vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh
export DISPLAY=:2
test x"$SHELL" = x"" && SHELL=/bin/bash
test x"$1" = x"" && set -- default
vncconfig -iconic &
"$SHELL" -l << EOF
export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/ubuntu:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/var/lib/snapd/desktop
export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc//xdg-ubuntu:/etc/xdg
export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME
export DESKTOP_SESSION=/usr/share/xsessions/ubuntu.desktop
export GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=ubuntu
dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/gnome-session --session=ubuntu
EOF
vncserver -kill $DISPLAY
both xstartup files have follwoing permissions
sudo chmod +x /etc/vnc/xstartup
sudo chmod 777 /etc/vnc/xstartup
Full Error message
vncserver[7143]: Thu Apr 13 16:26:40 2023
vncserver[7143]: ComparingUpdateTracker: 0 pixels in / 0 pixels out
vncserver[7143]: ComparingUpdateTracker: (1:-nan ratio)
vncserver[7143]: Killing Xtigervnc process ID 6921... which seems to be deadlocked. Using SIGKILL!
vncserver[6912]: Starting applications specified in /home/tai79/.vnc/xstartup has failed.
vncserver[6912]: Maybe try something simple first, e.g.,
vncserver[6912]: tigervncserver -xstartup /usr/bin/xterm
systemd[1]: [email protected]: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
systemd[1]: [email protected]: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Tried changing xstartup files, using different desktop environments etc
