TigerVNC: .vncserver-wrapped: couldn't find "xinit" on your PATH.

[tex]

tigervnc does not start due to ".vncserver-wrapped: couldn't find "xinit" on your PATH."

I have this in my NixOS configuration.nix:

   systemd.services."tigervnc-server" =                                                                                            
   { description = "TigerVNC Server";                                                                                              

     wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];                                                                                           

     serviceConfig =                                                                                                               
     { StandardError = "journal";                                                                                                  
       ExecStart = ''                                                                                                              
         ${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash -c 'source ${config.system.build.setEnvironment} ; \                                                
                   exec $SHELL --login -c "exec ${pkgs.tigervnc}/bin/vncserver :5"'                                                
       '';                                                                                                                         
       Type = "forking";                                                                                                           
       User = "milan";                                                                                                             
       Restart = "always";                                                                                                         
       RestartSec = "10s";                                                                                                         
     };                                                                                                                            
   };                                                                                                                              

I have xorg enabled:

# Enable the X11 windowing system.
  services.xserver.enable = true;
  services.xserver.layout = "us";
  services.xserver.windowManager.i3.enable = true;

It is server without monitor connected.

Worked good until last update. I am on channel: nixos https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-20.09

It doesn't start even from command line if I install it with nix-shell -p tigervnc

[tex]

Probably connected with upgrade to 1.11.0 (https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/2829500ac2bdeb1e09ee9e169a0e72c357c052e5)

From Arch forum: You probably have an old /etc/pam.d/tigervnc, you need to delete that and rename the newest tigervnc.pacnew to tigervnc, otherwise vncsession-start fails ("Failure daemonizing"/"pam_open_session failed: 28 (Module is unknown)")

I tried to run vncsession and for this failure deamonizing error. There is no /etc/pam.d/tigervnc in my system.

[tex]

Also from Arch forum (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1925998#p1925998)

• Delete your previous own created unit (likely is like the wiki instructed here), package has one on its own now and that's the one that works and doesn't use vncserver directly like before but vncsession-start. Don't forget to systemctl daemon-reload, /etc/systemd/system has priority so systemd should be using that instead of the package supplied one in /usr/lib/systemd/system
• You need a display manager, xorg-xdm DOESN'T work so lightdm must be used. I didn't use one before at all (headless machine, connecting to VNC via SSH tunnel) so I installed lightdm, otherwise TigerVNC can't start (No Xsession file available, vncsession-start just exits with status 0). Just install it, you don't need to configure it with a greeter or something else. I tried starting lightdm out of curiosity and it failed (status 1/FAILURE) but it doesn't matter for TigerVNC.
• Add your user and display on /etc/tigervnc/vncserver.users, otherwise the unit doesn't know which display and user to use ("No user configured for display :1")

[tex]

Anyone have a service already created for this?

[iblech]

In pkgs/tools/admin/tigervnc/default.nix, we list a couple of required packages in the PATH. At the time of writing, these are xterm twm xsetroot xauth. The error you pointed out is quickly fixed by adding xinit to this list.

However. It appears that the current version of tigervnc expects an Xsession file in /etc/X11. Hence tigervnc won't work even with this fix. Our tests would have caught this problem -- but unfortunately, I never got around to work on them again, the tests only exist as a pull request (#85214).

I might look into this later, but won't promise anything.

[stale[bot]]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[typetetris]

It is only a poor workaround, but you can use

xinit /home/user/.vnc/xstartup -- $(realpath $(which Xvnc)) :1 PasswordFile=/home/user/.vnc/passwd

to get a vncserver running similarly as before.

[eljojo]

@typetetris could you explain how to use that? would it be used in ExecStart for the service proposed above?

[typetetris]

You probably could make it work.

I never bothered. I start the vncserver when I need it, from the command line. An always running vncserver makes me uncomfortable.

[michaelCTS]

As a workaround, you should be able to add the xorg.xinit package to the list of packages required in PATH of the systemd service using systemd.services.<name>.path (source).

The proper fix would probably be adding xorg.xinit to the list of dependencies for tigervnc

[iblech]

@michaelCTS Unfortunately I'm afraid I think this will not work, as I alluded to here.

Personally, I have no use for the modern Xsession infrastructure and just use the following simple custom replacement script for booting up a VNC session:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# prepare Xauthority file
cookie=$(mcookie)
xauth -f $HOME/.Xauthority source - <<EOF
add $HOSTNAME:1 . $cookie 
add $HOSTNAME/unix:1 . $cookie
EOF

# logic lifted from sx 
trap 'DISPLAY=:1 exec xterm & wait "$!"' USR1
(trap "" USR1 && exec Xvnc :1 -auth $HOME/.Xauthority -desktop $HOSTNAME:1) & pid=$!
wait "$pid"

Perhaps we should include a version of this in our package?

[st0fm]

I just created a systemd service based on the workaround of @typetetris.

{ pkgs, ... }:
let
  home = "/home/user";
in
{
  environment.systemPackages = [pkgs.xorg.xinit];

  systemd.services.vncserver = {
    enable = true;
    environment = {
      PATH = pkgs.lib.mkForce "/run/wrappers/bin:${home}/.nix-profile/bin:/nix/profile/bin:${home}/.local/state/nix/profile/bin:/etc/profiles/per-user/user/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/run/current-system/sw/bin";
    };
    unitConfig = {
      Description = "Remote desktop service (VNC)";
      After = "syslog.target network.target";
    };

    serviceConfig = {
      Type = "simple";
      User = "user";
      WorkingDirectory = "${home}";

      ExecStartPre = "/bin/sh -c '${pkgs.tigervnc}/bin/vncserver -kill :1 > /dev/null 2>&1 || :'";
      ExecStart = "${pkgs.xorg.xinit}/bin/xinit ${home}/.vnc/xstartup -- ${pkgs.tigervnc}/bin/Xvnc :1 -interface 127.0.0.1 -rfbauth ${home}/.vnc/passwd";
      ExecStop = "${pkgs.tigervnc}/bin/vncserver -kill :1";

    };

    wantedBy = ["multi-user.target"];

  };
}

xstartup

#!/bin/sh

exec $(realpath $(which i3))

Just hard-coded the PATH variable to get it working, not sure if there is a better way.