I’ve set up many Linux systems that allow VNC without needing the monitor to remain attached once it’s built (i.e. headless). I’ve just set up a Rocky Linux 9 system with RealVNC and gotten that to work with the monitor attached. However, if I pull the monitor off, the VNC client fails to connect with a timeout error. I’ve tried 1) just pulling the HDMI connection, and 2) shutting the system down before detaching the monitor.
For the second method (the shutdown and detach) I see vncserver virtuald, x11-serviced, and x11-core services running once I’ve restarted the server. But the vnc client times out trying to connect.
Any thoughts? I really don’t want to have a monitor attached to this server, I’m using it as a VM host.