Issue with CentOS 6.4 – NX Client/OpenNX and keyboard configuration

since CentOS 6.4 was released yesterday, I started doing testing with it and found a weird issue, so I ask here in case somebody else can help me with a solution.

My setup

Linux CentOS 6.3 Server + XFCE-4
Remote access using NX Client from Windows 7. Also works with OpenNX.net client.
I have an International keyboard, model: pc105 + layout: es, all keys are working fine, special chars, I didn't have to do anything special to get this working, it just works.

I run a yum update, all the new packages download, server now is running CentOS 6.4, no other changes in configuration.

The issue is that after the update, when I connect via NX Client or OpenNX.net, the keyboard is not being set, from what I see:

Most of the keys appears to be a US keyboard
Cannot type the letter "P" (seriously, it's the only letter I cannot type, nothing happens)

When I open a terminal and execute "setxkbmap" (have to access the server through ssh and create an script since cannot type the "p" in the command), this is the output:

Couldn't interpret _XKB_RULES_NAMES property
Use defaults: rules - 'base' model - 'pc105' layout - 'us'

Using one script I managed to execute:

setxkbmap -model pc105 -layout es

This fixes the issue with special chars, however I still cannot type the letter "P"

Other testing I have done:

Installed another CentOS-6.4 (from 6.4 CD, no update)
Keyboard map works fine in the main console, tested with GNOME (startx) and XFCE (startxfce4)
Keyboard map works fine when accessing via XDMCP from other host
The same keyboard issues if I install nx/freenx on the server and configure the access.

jhcaiced

Posted 2013-03-10T01:29:14.053

Reputation: 1 488

This is something you should report to CentOS bugzilla. – vonbrand – 2013-03-10T02:52:12.707

Reported on CentOS Bugs as http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=6298

– jhcaiced – 2013-03-10T11:41:25.347

Please check your formatting – lists need to be formatted differently. – slhck – 2013-03-23T09:39:51.130

Answers

Filed a bug with CentOS (http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=6298) and it seems that this issue is related to this bug (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50553)

The problem is with the xkeyboard-config-2.6-6 package which is being included in CentOS-6.4.

UPDATE: An alternative solution, you can update all the packages to CentOS-6.4 and then run the command:

# touch /usr/share/X11/xkb/keymap.dir

Old Solution: In the mean time, my solution is to downgrade the package to the version used in CentOS-6.3 and exlude it from being updated again.

Download the old package from: http://vault.centos.org/6.3/os/x86_64/Packages/xkeyboard-config-2.3-1.el6.noarch.rpm

Force removal of the new package and install the old package:

rpm -e --force xkeyboard-config
rpm -ivh xkeyboard-config-2.3-1.el6.noarch.rpm

To avoid the package being updated again, add the following line to /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo in the [base] section.

exclude=xkeyboard-config-*

jhcaiced

Posted 2013-03-10T01:29:14.053

Reputation: 1 488

If you are running Xfce 4.8, there are default key bindings for Super-p and Super-Tab which seems to cause problems for OpenNX. Apparently there is something which makes it seem like the Super key is stuck, but I don't know the underlaying issue for this unfortunately.

You can try to remove these bindings and see if this quick-fixes your problem:

sed -i '/property name="&lt;Super&gt;p"/d' \
  ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml
sed -i '/property name="&lt;Super&gt;Tab"/d' \
  ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml

RolKau

Posted 2013-03-10T01:29:14.053

Reputation: 826