How to start a VNC session correctly on Raspbian?

Question

I start my VNC server via a @reboot vncserver & entry in my user's crontab.

But this seems to cause some problems since the cron environment is restricted. For examples see:

• Get Bash instead of /bin/sh in a VNC session started by cron
• Shutdown and reboot buttons not working in VNC session started by cron

So I would like to know a better way for starting a VNC server for a user under his account.

Answer 1

In your crontab, run your login shell with the option that does full login processing and have it run vncserver, e.g.:

bash -l -c vncserver

This will ensure that a) your preferred shell is used, and b) /etc/profile and your .bash_profile or .profile are read.