vncpasswd(1)

✨ vncpasswd(1) — the TightVNC password girlie ✨

okay so bestie, this is the vncpasswd manual page, and no cap it's the little utility that sets passwords for your VNC server. it's giving gatekeeper energy, but the good kind. 💅

🌸 NAME 🌸

vncpasswd — set passwords for VNC server

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

vncpasswd [file]
vncpasswd -t
vncpasswd -f

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the vncpasswd utility is literally the thing you use to create and change passwords for TightVNC server authentication. Xvnc uses those passwords when it gets started with the -rfbauth command-line option — or when it gets started from the vncserver script. iykyk. ✨

vncpasswd lets you enter either one or two passwords. the first password is the primary one, and the second one can be used for view-only authentication. Xvnc will restrict mouse and keyboard input from clients who authenticated with the view-only password — so they can look but they cannot touch, periodt. 🙈 the vncpasswd utility asks you interactively whether it should set that second password.

the password file name defaults to $HOME/.vnc/passwd unless the -t command-line option was used (peep the OPTIONS section below, bestie 👀). the $HOME/.vnc/ directory will be created if it does not exist.

each password has to be longer than five characters (unless the -f command-line option was used, see its description below). only the first eight characters are significant — so like, the rest is just for your own emotional support, fr fr. if the primary password is too short, the program will abort 😭. if the view-only password is too short, then only the primary password will be saved.

unless a file name was provided on the command-line explicitly, this utility may perform certain sanity checks to prevent writing a password file into some hazardous place. it's protective like that. 🫶

if at least one password was saved successfully, vncpasswd will exit with status code 0. otherwise the returned status code will be set to 1. no in-between, she's decisive.

💖 OPTIONS 💖

• -t — write passwords into /tmp/$USER-vnc/passwd, creating the /tmp/$USER-vnc/ directory if it does not exist, and checking the permissions on that directory (the mode must be 700). this option can help improve security when your home partition may be shared via network (e.g. when using NFS). lowkey a glow-up for your security. ✨
• -f — filter mode. read plain-text passwords from stdin, write encrypted versions to stdout. one or two passwords (full-control and view-only) can be supplied in the input stream, and a newline terminates a password. 👑

⚠️ note that in the filter mode, short or even empty passwords will be silently accepted. yes bestie, SILENTLY. she said nothing and just let it happen. 💀 be careful with that one.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

vncserver(1), Xvnc(1), vncviewer(1), vncconnect(1)

👑 AUTHORS 👑

original VNC was developed in AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. TightVNC additions were implemented by Constantin Kaplinsky. many other people participated in development, testing and support — shoutout to the whole squad. 🫶

man page authors:

• Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
• Tim Waugh <twaugh@redhat.com>
• Constantin Kaplinsky <const@tightvnc.com>

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💖 this lil icon was living her best life back in August 2006, and she's still out here under the TightVNC umbrella, page one of one, vncpasswd(1). slay. 🎀✨