vncserver on Amazon Linux on Amazon's AWS

NOTE: this first step may be outdated in new versions of Amazon Linux, which provides libjpeg-turbo.

First, get a good version of libjpeg-turbo:

1. yum clean all
2. yum --enablerepo=amzn-preview install libjpeg-turbo
3. see: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121128

Necessary packages:

1. gnutls-2.8.5-10.el6.x86_64.rpm
2. libfontenc-1.0.5-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
3. libtasn1-2.3-3.el6.x86_64.rpm
4. libxdmcp-1.1.1-7.ram1.x86_64.rpm
5. libXfont-1.4.5-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
6. libxkbfile-1.0.6-1.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
7. libXmu-1.1.1-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
8. mesa-dri-drivers-9.0-0.7.el6.x86_64.rpm
9. pixman-0.26.2-5.el6_4.x86_64.rpm
10. tigervnc-license-1.3.0-16.el6.noarch.rpm
11. tigervnc-server-1.3.0-16.el6.x86_64.rpm
12. tigervnc-server-minimal-1.3.0-16.el6.x86_64.rpm
13. xkeyboard-config-2.6-6.el6.noarch.rpm
14. xorg-x11-proto-devel-7.6-25.el6.noarch.rpm
15. xorg-x11-xauth-1.0.2-7.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
16. xorg-x11-xkb-utils-7.7-4.el6.x86_64.rpm

Necessary packages for fluxbox:

1. pyxdg-0.18-1.el6.noarch.rpm

Here's a link to all the packages needed: rpms

Start by trying to install tigervnc-server. That will fail. Follow the dependencies down, installing packages one by one as they come up. If they fail, install their dependencies first.

These packages were special cases

1. mesa-dri-drivers-9.0-0.7.el6.x86_64.rpm
1. just "--nodeps" install this one
2. the libraries of the dependencies are never called from my experience
2. libXtst-1.2.1-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
1. there is a more recent version of this already in Amazon Linux, so just skip this one and "--nodeps" the parent package, which is libXmu-1.1.1-2.el6.x86_64.rpm

If not found, add location of libXdmcp.so.6 to /etc/ld.so.conf and run "ldconfig", e.g. locations is /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 so add the line "/usr/lib".

Once I got the vncserver up with

  vncserver :66 -localhost

bizarrely, it was listening on port 5966 and some 6066 port. The 5966 port is the one you want.

See previous post on Redhat VNC for details, click here.