(SOLVED) VNC not connecting to VM


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This issue has been solved.

Turned out to be only noVNC what was not connecting, and it was due to invalid browser cookies. Clearing my cookies was the solution.

Using a standalone VNC client connected without issue.

 

I would like to thank everyone who helped. I would not have been able to figure this out without them, which makes me feel quite silly.

 

 

 

ORIGINAL POST:

 

Ok, so, first, I have an admission. I used unRAID as a trial for the full duration, then started a second trial on a new flash drive, but booting the same array. The reason I did this is that the purchase price of unRAID basic is roughly 1.5x a weeks pay for me, so it wasn't easy to save up enough. I have now purchased unRAID, though the purchase was badly bungled, the key is in my server, everything is activated and fine, I'm just screwed if I need to change flash drive at all, ever.

That all aside, onto the real issue:

 

On my first trial of unRAID, everything worked great, no issues whatsoever.

On my second trial of unRAID, VMs stopped working correctly. They appear to start and run just fine, but the VNC remote simply doesn't connect.

I have noticed that the VNC port for the first VM I start is 5900, but the VNC remote is trying to connect to 5700. Manually changing this to 5900 does not help, it still does not connect.

I held off seeking support for this issue until after I had purchased unRAID. I now own an unRAID license, and the issue persists.

The issue occurs on all VMs that I have tried. This includes Windows sever, pfSense, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Knoppix, VyOS, and various other Linux distros.

While writing this post, I decided to take a look at the log. I am not too good with Linux yet, so this makes little to no sense to me, but there was a standout (highlighed in colour) log entry(s) when attempting to connect to the VNC remote.

 

Feb 14 22:51:04 DefectiveServer nginx: 2018/02/14 22:51:04 [error] 7000#7000: *421214 recv() failed (104: Connection reset by peer) while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.127.100, server: , request: "GET /wsproxy/5700/ HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://127.0.0.1:5700/", host: "192.168.127.87"
Feb 14 22:52:25 DefectiveServer nginx: 2018/02/14 22:52:25 [error] 7000#7000: *421334 upstream sent no valid HTTP/1.0 header while reading response header from upstream, client: 192.168.127.100, server: , request: "GET /wsproxy/5900/ HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://127.0.0.1:5900/", host: "192.168.127.87"
Feb 14 22:52:25 DefectiveServer nginx: 2018/02/14 22:52:25 [error] 7000#7000: *421334 recv() failed (104: Connection reset by peer) while reading upstream, client: 192.168.127.100, server: , request: "GET /wsproxy/5900/ HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://127.0.0.1:5900/", host: "192.168.127.87"

 

I have an extremely powerful workstation, and high speed internet, so if a video of some sort is required/requested, I can easily provide. Haven't bothered yet, as all I can really think of to show is me attempting to connect and it failing, which shows basically no information. 

 

Other information to note;

My "server" is an old Acer laptop with a faulty mainboard. Specifically, when an OS loads nVidia drivers, it causes kernel panic, on all OS's, with all nVidia drivers. 

The nVidia graphics is disabled in BIOS now, to prevent any accidents. All display is handled by the Intel graphics. 

This laptop does not appear to support any virtualization extensions. There are no relevant settings in the BIOS.

I have 2 drives, both 750GB. 1 of which is mounted in the optical drive bay, using an adapter.

The second drive was added to the array during the second trial. I did not attempt to load any VMs before adding it. 

 

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. I have no idea where to even start in fixing this, and attempts to search for a solution online have not lead anywhere.

Edited by DefectiveServer
Issue solved.
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2 minutes ago, trurl said:

 

Not so. See here for replacement key policy and procedure:

 

https://lime-technology.com/replace-key/

 

Thanks for replying. I do not have access to the email address that unRAID seems to have bound itself to, so everything will come screeching to a halt at step 5. 

This isn't currently an issue, as I should hope to be able to afford a new key by the time my flash drive dies.

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5 minutes ago, DefectiveServer said:

 

Thanks for replying. I do not have access to the email address that unRAID seems to have bound itself to, so everything will come screeching to a halt at step 5. 

This isn't currently an issue, as I should hope to be able to afford a new key by the time my flash drive dies.

You can email support to get a replacement if it's ever needed. Purchasing a new key isn't necessary

 

https://lime-technology.com/contact/

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I highly recommend NoMachine, a VNC like tool that provides a much better experience than VNC IMO. It is the first thing I install in a new VM.

 

It will also run alongside passthrough video. It is therefore very handy if the passthrough should ever stop working to gain access to the server and fix the issue. VNC might work the same, but as implemented, VNC is not enabled when video is passed through. And VNC sorta sucks compared to NoMachine.

 

Sorry can't help with your VNC challenge.

 

12 minutes ago, DefectiveServer said:

Thanks for replying. I do not have access to the email address that unRAID seems to have bound itself to, so everything will come screeching to a halt at step 5. 

This isn't currently an issue, as I should hope to be able to afford a new key by the time my flash drive dies.

 

A PM / email to @limetech might straighten this out. He is very fair with these situations. Not sure all the details of what happened with you. License transfers are not allowed.

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1 minute ago, SSD said:

I highly recommend NoMachine, a VNC like tool that provides a much better difference than VNC IMO. It is the first thing I install in a new VM.

 

It will also run alongside passthrough video. It is therefore very handy if the passthrough should ever stop working to gain access to the server and fix the issue. VNC might work the same, but as implemented, VNC is not enabled when video is passed through. And VNC sorta sucks compared to NoMachine.

 

Sorry can't help with your VNC challenge.

 

 

A PM / email to @limetech might straighten this out. He is very fair with these situations. Not sure all the details of what happened with you. License transfers are not allowed.

 

I am not sure i understand this correctly. Is this something I can use to access a VM that has never been accessed before? I cannot get into them at all, and have only been using VNC as it is the default, and, despite the dropdown menu, only, method of connecting using the WebUI.

 

 

5 minutes ago, trurl said:

You can email support to get a replacement if it's ever needed. Purchasing a new key isn't necessary

 

https://lime-technology.com/contact/

 

While I certainly do appreciate the help with the licensing issues, I only mentioned that to give any and all relevant information. I am led to believe that flash drives running unRAID last in excess of 5 years for a high quality drive, so do not see this as an issue requiring attention at this time. 

In any case, I like unRAID enough that I would be willing to abandon this license and purchase a new one, provided I can afford it, simply to support Lime Tech. I am a firm believer in voting with my money. 

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4 minutes ago, itimpi said:

Port 5900 that was mentioned is for a free-standing VNC client.    Port 5700 is for the browser based version.   I find that the free-standing clients (I personally use RealVNC) are far more reliable and performant than a browser based version.

 

Is this to mean that I could install some VNC client and connect using port 5900? I was not aware of that.

I have only been using the browser VNC access, as this was all I was aware of in terms of my options, other than installing some other software to the guest system.

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7 minutes ago, DefectiveServer said:

 

Is this to mean that I could install some VNC client and connect using port 5900? I was not aware of that.

I have only been using the browser VNC access, as this was all I was aware of in terms of my options, other than installing some other software to the guest system.

Yes.    You can install a VNC client on another system and then connect to the VM using the unRAID servers address and the port shown in the GUI.     This is independent of what is installed in the VM.   I always work this way as i have often had issues getting the browser based VNC to work reliably.

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17 minutes ago, DefectiveServer said:

I am not sure i understand this correctly. Is this something I can use to access a VM that has never been accessed before? I cannot get into them at all, and have only been using VNC as it is the default, and, despite the dropdown menu, only, method of connecting using the WebUI.

 

No, you need to install NoMachine. You need VNC access to do so. Weird VNC not working. I do remember have a VNC problem and was able to access with RealVNC. You might give that a try. 

 

17 minutes ago, DefectiveServer said:

While I certainly do appreciate the help with the licensing issues, I only mentioned that to give any and all relevant information. I am led to believe that flash drives running unRAID last in excess of 5 years for a high quality drive, so do not see this as an issue requiring attention at this time. 

In any case, I like unRAID enough that I would be willing to abandon this license and purchase a new one, provided I can afford it, simply to support Lime Tech. I am a firm believer in voting with my money

 

This licensing story seems a little odd. Earlier you said the license was a financial hardship. Now suddenly you are ready to buy another license. Seems odd. If you legitimately purchased a license Tom will get you squared away. I am 100% sure of that. I'd suggest getting it straightened out now. If you don't, or if you got a resale or something, it is unlikely the flash will fail, but you are at risk should it ever happen.

 

Please understand that the only person that can help you with that is LimeTech. Discussions here in the forum not productive. 

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1 minute ago, itimpi said:

Yes.    You can install a VNC client on another system and then connect to the VM using the unRAID servers address and the port shown in the GUI.     This is independent of what is installed in the VM.   I always work this way as i have often had issues getting the browser based VNC to work reliably.

 

I have installed TightVNC viewer on my workstation, and it does indeed connect when I point it at 5900. Thank you very much.

This is a workable situation, though, obviously, I would still like the noVNC web client to connect. 

 

1 minute ago, SSD said:

 

No, you need to install NoMachine. You need VNC access to do so. Weird VNC not working. I do remember have a VNC problem and was able to access with RealVNC. You might give that a try. 

 

 

This licensing story seems a little odd. Earlier you said the license was a financial hardship. Now suddenly you are ready to buy another license. Seems odd. If you legitimately purchased a license Tom will get you squared away. I am 100% sure of that. I'd suggest getting or straightened out now. If you don't, or if you got a resale or something, it is unlikely the flash will fail, but you are at risk should it ever happen.

 

Please understand that the only person that can help you with that is LimeTech. Discussions here in the forum not productive. 

 

The license is currently a financial hardship. I do not foresee my present situation lasting longer than the lifespan of a lightly used, high quality flash drive.

I will get it sorted, I am just currently directing my attention to being able to use unRAID for what I bought it for, as the server does run.

I would like to point out that I have been actively discouraging discussion of my licensing issues, as I do not see it as being important to my VMs, since the server shows clearly as being registered. 

 

Thank you all very much for your help. I am especially impressed with how quickly I received help. This is a vast different from my previous experiences with forums. 

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10 minutes ago, DefectiveServer said:

Thank you all very much for your help. I am especially impressed with how quickly I received help. This is a vast different from my previous experiences with forums.

 

You're welcome. Use the reputation feature when you feel you've gotten good support here in the forums. (Click the heart on lower right of any post)

 

Glad you got your VNC connection working. Now is a good time to install NoMachine. It's free and works very well - as close to pass through performances I've seen. And as you've seen, it is good to have a couple connection options to avoid losing access completely! 

 

Good luck and enjoy your array! 

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Thank you very much. I have been looking into NoMachine in between poking at noVNC, and it certainly does seem appealing, for more than just my unRAID VMs.

 

Thanks to you wonderful people, I have been pointed in the right direction to fix my issues. Knowing that the issue was very specifically with noVNC was key here.

I feel rather silly now, knowing what the solution was. Turned out to be my browser cookies. I don't know how to dissect what actually happened, but after clearing my cookies, noVNC is working again. 

My guess is that something in the cookies bound to the installation of unRAID, meaning that my new trial, on the same IP address (that was probably a big mistake), was finding invalid cookies, leading to the " sent no valid HTTP/1.0 header" error. 

I still have much to learn about networking, this has been a stern reminder of that.

 

Thank you all again for all your help. I will update the main post to indicate that this issue is solved, and now go figure out what happened with my license purchase.

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