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Xvfb for Solaris

by Jeff Hunter, Sr. Database Administrator

Installing the Xvfb Software

Download the latest binary version of Xvfb for Solaris using the link below:

   X11R6_bin.tar.gz - (10,074,821 bytes)

NOTE: You can also find the files in the download page: http://www.x.org/Downloads.html
(Under "New X I18N code")

Installing the Xvfb Software

Installing the Xvfb binaries for Solaris is nothing more than untarring the software into the proper directory. The following are the steps required to install the software:

% su -
# mkdir /usr/X11R6
# cp X11R6_bin.tar.gz /usr/X11R6
# cd /usr/X11R6
# gunzip X11R6_bin.tar.gz
# tar xvf X11R6_bin.tar
# rm X11R6_bin.tar

After installing the Xvfb binaries, you should now update the proper init files to have the Xvfb software startup when the machine is re-booted.

First, update the the login profile script (i.e. .profile, .bash_profile, .cshrc, etc.) of any of the users that will be making use of Xvfb:

+--------------------+
| .profile           |
+--------------------+
DISPLAY=:1.0; export DISPLAY

When putting the call to Xvfb into a startup script, ensure that it comes BEFORE starting the Apache webserver and/or Oracle Enterprise Manager Server. (e.g. Basically, make sure that the X virtual frame buffer is started BEFORE any of the services that will be using it.)

To have the Xvfb software startup when the machine is cycled, put an entry in your start up script for the service that will be using it. In my example, the file I use to start the Apache server and/or Oracle Enterprise Manager is named "/etc/init.d/dbora". The example below is a snip of teh start) section of the dbora script:

+---------------------------------------------------+ | /etc/init.d/dbora | +---------------------------------------------------+ case "$1" in start) ... /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvfb :1 -screen 0 1152x900x8 & /u01/app/apache/bin/apachectl start su - oracle -c "start_OEM" ... stop) ... *) echo $"Usage: $prog {start|stop}" exit 1 esac exit