Can't change vino password in 7.04 and 8.04

[houchin]

Binary package hint: gconf

Under fully updated 7.0.4 (as of 9/19/07), changing your remote desktop password is problematic.

What does NOT work is to open the Remote Desktop preferences, change the password, and close. Even logging off and then back on doesn't correctly change it (it seems to change it to something, but not to what I set it to.

To successfully change the password, I had to:
Open remote desktop preferences
Clear the password (delete all characters), close
logout and then back in
Open remote desktop preferences again
Set the password to what I wanted it to be
close, logout, then log back in

[Andrew Swinn (andrewswinn)]

I am experiencing this same issue with Ubuntu 7.10. Changed password for remote desktop while logged in remotely and then could not authenticate again. Both old and new password refused to authenticate. This was on a remote computer with no monitor attached at the time so I will have to attach a monitor to try the mentioned workaround.

[ajonat (ajonat)]

Ok. I figured this problem out.
The key thing is that the vnc password is not updated correctly.
The solution is to open gconf-editor and edit desktop > remote_access > vnc_password.
The vnc_password field is base64-encoded. Navigate to this page: http://www.javazoom.net/services/base64/base64.jsp, type your password and let the applet encode it. Paste the base64-encoded password in the vnc_password field and voila!
It works with and without SSH tunnel.
You don't have to logout/login, it just works!

Hope this help you.

P.S. I'm using feisty up-to-date.

[drewan (drew-woz)]

This bug also seems to be present in 8.04 Hardy:

Systems-> Preferences-> Remote Desktop
x Ask for confirmation
x Require password
password: ...
close

attempt connection using vncviewer:
enter password
..."authentication failed"

This workaround has worked for me:

- gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled false
- gconf-editor
  - paste encode password from: http://www.javazoom.net/services/base64/base64.jsp
- or use:
  - gconftool-2 -s -t string /desktop/gnome/remote_access/vnc_password <encode_pwd>
- or use:
  - System-> preferences-> Remote Desktop
  - set pwd as desired...
- manual text edit of %gconf.xml does not seem to work!
- gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/remote_access/enabled true
- verify .gconf/desktop/gnome/remote_access/%gconf.xml

It appears that the Gnome Remote Desktop config UI does not save the password unless the vino service if first stopped and then restarted. You may have to wait a bit between stop/edit/start operations ??

[Alecz20 (alexguzu)]

I can also confirm this bug in Hardy 8.04.1 with all updates as of September, 2008

[Alecz20 (alexguzu)]

This bug has been confirmed as seen in the comments. It should be looked at and fixed at least for 8.10

[Jonh Wendell (wendell)]

Hi, guys. This is fixed in vino 2.23.x. Try intrepid, please and tell us if this still happens.

[Kevin (huckle.smothered)]

I found this thread due to an upgrade to Intrepid ... on my client.
My server is still Hardy.
Worked right after I upgraded (I think) and then suddenly stopped taking my password.
Workaround above worked for me.
Not sure what version of vino you are wanting (server or client) or where/how to find it.
Let me know if you still need any info and I will get it.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

could you try on jaunty to see if that's still an issue?

[metaeoc (metaeoc)]

Regardless of what is happening in Jaunty or others, I find this issue to be a MAJOR inconsistency in Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 LTS ... I believe it deserves attention as it is a continuing problem for LTS users ... Having to reinstall vino every time I want to change a password, or use command line utilities (shown above) to be a pain, especially for a Desktop application. This is probably a big issue, especially for primarily Desktop Users, and Could also be considered a security problem... After doing some looking around and doing things several times I have found that the base64 program only updates the encoded password and not the 'mtime' variable in
/.gconf/desktop/gnome/remote_access/%gconf.xml
 which is contingent to the encoded password
when entering a new password in the GUI in System>Preferences>Remote Desktop

I would like to see this bug considered for fix ... I believe I have given enough information for a consideration

Thank You BugTeam,
Hilaire F. Nollette

[Kevin (huckle.smothered)]

Successfully changed Remote Desktop password in Jaunty and was able to log back in.

[hanasaki (hanasaki-ubuntu)]

seeing this in karmic as of 2010-03-17 with all current updates in place.
consider raising the priority from "low" please?
can someone confirm this is (or is not) an issue in lucid? Lucid is not yet Beta, would be a good time to fix if possible for this release.

[Ján Neščivera (yohny)]

I am experiencing this bug in Oneiric too, it looks like password entered in remote desktop preferences is ignored somehow (VNC clients in Windows and Ubuntu say 'Authentication failed'). As a workaround I'm able to set password using vino-passwd in terminal, then I'm able to access my computer remotely using that password

[Alecz20 (alexguzu)]

I just tried it and it seems to work for me in Lucid (10.04).

This release is the only LTS release I can use, because volume control is broken in 11.4