DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / tigervnc-tools / tigervncpasswd.1.en
tigervncpasswd(1) Virtual Network Computing tigervncpasswd(1)

tigervncpasswd - change the VNC password

tigervncpasswd [passwd-file]
tigervncpasswd -f

tigervncpasswd allows you to set the password used to access VNC desktops. Its default behavior is to prompt for a VNC password and then store an obfuscated version of this password to passwd-file (or to $HOME/.vnc/passwd if no password file is specified.) The tigervncserver script runs tigervncpasswd the first time you start a VNC desktop, and it invokes Xtigervnc with the appropriate -rfbauth option. xtigervncviewer can also be given a password file to use via the -passwd option.

The password must be at least six characters long (unless the -f command-line option is used-- see below), and only the first eight characters are significant. Note that the stored password is not encrypted securely - anyone who has access to this file can trivially find out the plain-text password, so tigervncpasswd always sets appropriate permissions (read and write only by the owner.) However, when accessing a VNC desktop, a challenge-response mechanism is used over the wire making it hard for anyone to crack the password simply by snooping on the network.

Filter mode. Read a plain-text password from stdin and write an encrypted version to stdout. Note that in filter mode, short or even empty passwords will be silently accepted.

A view-only password must be separated from the normal password by a newline character.

$HOME/.vnc/passwd
Default location of the VNC password file.

xtigervncviewer(1), Xtigervnc(1) tigervncconfig(1), tigervncsession(8)
https://www.tigervnc.org

Tristan Richardson, RealVNC Ltd., Antoine Martin, D. R. Commander and others.

VNC was originally developed by the RealVNC team while at Olivetti Research Ltd / AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. TightVNC additions were implemented by Constantin Kaplinsky. Many other people have since participated in development, testing and support. This manual is part of the TigerVNC software suite.

TigerVNC