VNC Screesize Issue

[kch]

I appear to have a problem with the screensize of the java VNC client and KVM based client OS machines.

When 800x600 resolution is used, the screen correctly shows the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. When 1024x768 is selected, the taskbar vanishes off the bottom of the screen and no scroll bar appears, so you cannot get to it.

The following two pictures show the problem. Whilst these are from a backtrack live CD, the same thing happens with windows server 2008 as a client OS








Has anyone else come across this issue? Is there a solution to it?

I am running on windows 2003 server and have tried both IE and Mozilla browsers, but with the same results.

If there is any further debug information I can provide, please let me know.

--
KCH

 

[jcanodk]

Even if you have no scroll bars, you can still resize the window.

 

[kch]

jcanodk,

When I try to re-size the screen, it just snaps back to the original size. If there is a method of resizing other than clicking on the edge and dragging, then please elaborate.

Unfortunately, I an restricted to using windows as my client system, so I cannot slide the window off the top of the screen and get more room at the bottom, even if I could make the window larger.

--
KCH

 

[jcanodk]

What about setting the resolution in your VM to be smaller than your client desktop???

 

[kch]

What about setting the resolution in your VM to be smaller than your client desktop???

Ahh! Now I understand your comment. That is what I am doing as a work-around.

However, the behavior I reported is not what I expected to happen. When you have multiple people using the VM's, then they can set the screen size to a resolution that the next person is unable to display.

{edit}
Booting a live linux CD that doesn't start a graphical interface also suffers from this problem of using a screen resolution that is too big.

--
KCH

 

[bsnipes]

I don't know if this will help but it works for me and might be worth a try ( taken from another forum thread ):
------
Fix for "Web Based VNC Console renders a partial screen "

Work around is to oversize the applet at start and it will be shrunk acordingly
I altered line 72 of /usr/share/pve-manager/root/qemu/vnc-direct.htm to read
$out .= "<APPLET id=vncapp CODE='VncViewer.class' ARCHIVE='/vncterm/VncViewer.jar' width=10000 height=10000 vspace=0 hspace=0>\n";
-----

 

[jcanodk]

OK, this is only my opinion.

Why on earth would you want to WORK on a VNC display???
I also have MS servers running on proxmox, but the way to work on them is by RDP.
I only use VNC to do the initial setup. Once it's up and running you can even connect to the console with rdp.
I believe it's "mstsc /v:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx /console" on win machines. Don't know how with the gui...

 

[twocell]

Why on earth would you want to WORK on a VNC display???
I also have MS servers running on proxmox, but the way to work on them is by RDP.

Agreed. If the system is remote I suggest tunneling RDP over SSH for security. SSH provides better file transfer functionality as well. If you are running Windows on your workstation Tunnelier http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier eliminates the need to login 2x (one for SSH one for RDP).

 

[bsnipes]

Why on earth would you want to WORK on a VNC display???
I also have MS servers running on proxmox, but the way to work on them is by RDP.

When you are in the Proxmox GUI working and want to pop into the guest for a few minutes, using the Open VNC Console option makes perfect sense. You expect it to be sized correctly (which is what the OP wanted) when you go back in. I can't speak for most but I administer my servers from a Linux desktop and mostly from the local LAN. As far as I know you can't copy/paste from a Linux RDP session (correct me if I'm wrong) and I have no use for the audio being ported across the connection so RDP gives me nothing extra.

 

[kch]

OK, this is only my opinion.

Why on earth would you want to WORK on a VNC display???
I also have MS servers running on proxmox, but the way to work on them is by RDP.
I only use VNC to do the initial setup. Once it's up and running you can even connect to the console with rdp.
I believe it's "mstsc /v:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx /console" on win machines. Don't know how with the gui...

1) I am working with test environments that do not have rdp/ssh ports listening, nor do I want them listening.
2) Not everyone runs windows.
3) running xwindows over ssh with port forwarding gets ugly and deviates from the standard configuration.

 

[jcanodk]

2) Not everyone runs windows.

Thank god... ;-)

 

[kch]

I don't know if this will help but it works for me and might be worth a try ( taken from another forum thread ):
------
Fix for "Web Based VNC Console renders a partial screen "

Work around is to oversize the applet at start and it will be shrunk acordingly
I altered line 72 of /usr/share/pve-manager/root/qemu/vnc-direct.htm to read
$out .= "\n";
-----

I have found a partial solution.

Looking at the VncViewer.jar documentation, there is an additional parameter which can be added that seems to do the trick. Add the following parameter into the APPLET tag code in the file bsnipes indicated above

$out .= "<param name='Open new window' value='Yes'>\n";

There is a problem with an additional window being left behind, but at least I now get scroll bars and I can see the bottom of the screen.

Investigation is continuing, but I hope this helps someone else.

--
KCH

 

[JustaGuy]

Has anyone else come across this issue? Is there a solution to it?
I am running on windows 2003 server and have tried both IE and Mozilla browsers, but with the same results.

I have a similar issue with a Windows XP in KVM, regardless of the resolution in the guest, the right & bottom edges are missing approximately an inch & a half of space.

It's possible to prevent the pop-up window from resizing by unchecking the javascript options that allow it to resize windows.
Unfortunately that alone does not solve the problem, the viewport remains improperly sized.

In my case it only happens in Firefox, 3.6.10 is the version.

Chrome displays the guests entire screen, but draws window borders & scrollbar around the area so that approximately 1/4 inch of the bottom & right edges are covered by them.
Chrome does not offer options to disallow javascript from resizing pop-up windows.

Internet Explorer 8.0.7600.16385 displays the pop-up correctly, providing the guest resolution is smaller than the screen I view the browser pop-up on.

pve-manager: 1.6-2 (pve-manager/1.6/5087)
running kernel: 2.6.35-1-pve
pve-kernel-2.6.32-4-pve: 2.6.32-19
pve-kernel-2.6.35-1-pve: 2.6.35-3
qemu-server: 1.1-18
pve-firmware: 1.0-9
libpve-storage-perl: 1.0-14
vncterm: 0.9-2
vzctl: 3.0.24-1pve4
vzdump: 1.2-7
vzprocps: 2.0.11-1dso2
vzquota: 3.0.11-1

 

[m.ardito]

i confirm this from win7 x64, ff3.6.10, viewing a ubuntu 10.04 desktop vm using the vnc applet integrated in pve admin gui...
as for now, i disabled the "allow windows resizing" permission to javascripts, as a workaround...

Marco

 

[tom]

I am also on a win7-64 with firefox 3.6.11 latest java. never got any issues here.

 

[JustaGuy]

I'm revisiting this after upgrading to Firefox 4 beta7, after becoming fed up with FF3 making me wait up to 10 seconds between right-clicking & seeing the context menu.

In Firefox 4 I don't wait for anything, but it detaches the consoles even when you uncheck the box that allows javascript to raise or lower windows.

I tried both methods as described previously with regard to editing /usr/share/pve-manager/root/qemu/vnc-direct.htm, neither of which had any effect whatsoever.

Is there a service that needs to be restarted after modifying that file?

EDIT:

This to enable changes made to that file:

/etc/init.d/qemu-server restart

I found size values of 800 x 600 without the second 'new window' line to be sufficient- for tty access though, not GUI.

 

[Dcn]

I don't know if this will help but it works for me and might be worth a try ( taken from another forum thread ):
------
Fix for "Web Based VNC Console renders a partial screen "

Work around is to oversize the applet at start and it will be shrunk acordingly
I altered line 72 of /usr/share/pve-manager/root/qemu/vnc-direct.htm to read
$out .= "<APPLET id=vncapp CODE='VncViewer.class' ARCHIVE='/vncterm/VncViewer.jar' width=10000 height=10000 vspace=0 hspace=0>\n";
-----

I was having similar issues where a pfSense shell by vnc was always missing the latest line, obviously usefull because all questions for configuration are printed on this latest line.
I modified the code of the above described file by replacing 400 to 480 in the following:

Line 72: $out .= "<APPLET id=vncapp CODE='VncViewer.class' ARCHIVE='/vncterm/VncViewer.jar' width=640 height=400 vspace=0 hspace=0>\n";