Table of Contents
If Guacamole isn't working, chances are something isn't configured properly, or something is wrong with the network. Thankfully, Guacamole and all its components log errors thoroughly, so the problem can usually be traced down fairly easily if you know where to look. Troubleshooting Guacamole usually boils down to checking either syslog or your servlet container's logs (likely Tomcat).
Failing all that, you can always post a question in the forums, or if you truly feel you've discovered a bug, you can create a new ticket in Trac. Beware that if something isn't working, and there are errors in the logs describing the problem, it is usually not a bug, and the best place to handle such things is through consulting this guide or the forums.
If you never see any graphics appear, or you see "Connecting, waiting for first update..." for a while and then are disconnected, the most likely cause is a proxy.
Guacamole relies on streaming data to you over a persistent connection. If software between Guacamole and your browser is buffering all incoming data, such as a proxy, this data never makes it to your browser, and you will just see it wait indefinitely. Eventually, thinking the client has disconnected, Guacamole closes the connection, at which point the proxy finally flushes its buffer and you see graphics! ... just in time to see it disconnect.
The solution here is to either modify your proxy settings to flush packets immediately as they are received, or to use HTTPS. Proxies are required to pass HTTPS through untouched, and this usually solves the problem.
Even if you aren't aware of any proxy, there may be one in place. Corporate firewalls very often incorporate proxies. Antivirus software may buffer incoming data until the connection is closed and the data is scanned for viruses. Virtualization software may detect HTTP data and buffer the connection just like a proxy. If all else fails, try HTTPS - it's the only secure way to do this anyway.
If you are using Tomcat, beware that you must set the
URIEncoding="UTF-8" attribute on all connectors in your
server.xml. If you are using a different servlet container,
you need to find out whether it requires special options to support UTF-8 in URIs,
and change the required settings to enable such support.
Without UTF-8 support enabled for URIs, Unicode characters in connection names will not be received properly when connecting, and Guacamole will thing the connection you requested does not exist. Similarly, if you are using the built-in administration interface, parameters involving Unicode characters will not save properly without these options enabled.
guacd and libguac-based programs (such as all client plugins) log informational messages and errors to syslog. Specifically, guacd uses syslog, and it exposes this logging facility to everything it loads (client plugins), thus if the VNC or RDP support plugins encounter errors, they log those errors over the logging facilities exposed by guacd, in this case syslog.
Once you guacd is started, you'll see entries like the following in syslog:
guacd[19663]: Guacamole proxy daemon (guacd) version 0.7.0
guacd[19663]: Unable to bind socket to host ::1, port 4823: Address family
not supported by protocol
guacd[19663]: Successfully bound socket to host 127.0.0.1, port 4823
guacd[19663]: Exiting and passing control to PID 19665
guacd[19665]: Exiting and passing control to PID 19666
guacd[19666]: Listening on host 127.0.0.1, port 4823
Each entry relevant to Guacamole has the prefix "guacd", denoting the program that produced the entry, followed by the process ID, followed by the message. The entries above show guacamole starting successfully and listening on a non-default port 4823.
This means that guacd failed to start up at all because the port it wants to listen on is already taken at all addresses attempted. The details of what guacd tried will be listed in the log entries above this. To solve the problem, find what port guacd was trying to listen on (the default is 4822) and check if any other service is listening on that port.
If another service is listening on the default port, you
can always specify a non-standard port for guacd by using
the -l
option (that's a lowercase "L", not a number "1"), where
PORTPORT is the number of the
port to listen on. Beware that you will likely have to
modify guacamole.properties so that
Guacamole knows how to connect to guacd.
guacd creates two threads for each connection: one that receives input from the connected client, and the other that produces output for the client. If either of these fails to start, the above error will be logged along with the cause.
If it is the output thread that fails to start, the message will instead read: "Unable to start output thread".
If the client plugin ever returns an error code, this will cause the connection to immediately terminate, with the cause of the error specific to the plugin in use. The cause should be detailed in the log messages above the error. If those log messages don't make sense, you may have found a bug.
When guacd starts up, it immediately attempts to "fork" into the background (unless instructed otherwise). The word "fork()" above is a reference to the C function call that does this. There are several calls to this function, each of which might fail if system resources are lacking or something went wrong at a low level. If you see this message, it is probably not a bug in Guacamole, but rather a problem with the load level of your system.
This message may also appear as "Could not fork() group leader".
One of the duties of guacd as it starts up is to change its working directory to the root directory. This is to prevent locking the current directory in case it needs to be unmounted, etc. If guacd cannot do this, this error will be logged, along with the cause.
As guacd starts, it also has to redirect STDOUT, STDERR,
and STDIN to /dev/null such that
attempts to use these output mechanisms do not pollute the
active console. Though guacd and client plugins will use the
exposed logging facilities (and thus syslog) rather than
STDOUT or STDERR, libraries used by client plugins are often
written only from the mindset of a typical client, and use
standard output mechanisms for debug logging. Not
redirecting these would result in undesired output to the
console.
If guacd cannot redirect these file descriptors for any reason, this error will be logged, along with the cause.
If you specified a host or port to listen on via commandline options, and that host or port is actually invalid, you will see this error. Fix the corresponding option and try again.
When guacd starts up, it needs to open a socket and then listen on that socket. If it can't even open the socket, this error will be logged, and guacd will exit. The cause is most likely related to permissions, and is logged along with the error.
If the hostname you specified on the commandline cannot be found, you will see this error. Note that this error is from guacd, and does not relate to whatever remote desktop servers you may be trying to use; it relates only to the host guacd is trying to listen on. Check the hostname or IP address specified on the commandline. If that checks out, there may be a problem with your DNS or your network.
In order to become a "daemon" (that is, in order to run in the background as a system process), guacd must create and exit from several processes, redirect file descriptors, etc. If any of these steps fails, guacd will not become a daemon, and it will log this message and exit. The reason guacd could not become a daemon will be in the previous error message in the logs.
guacd offers a commandline option that lets you specify a file that it should write its process ID into, which is useful for init scripts. If you see this error, it likely means the user guacd is running as does not have permission to write this file. The true cause of the error will be logged in the same entry. Check which user guacd is running as, and then check that it has write permission to the file in question.
When guacd starts up, it needs to listen on the socket it just opened in order to accept connections. If it cannot listen on the socket, clients will be unable to connect. If, for any reason, guacd is unable to listen on the socket, guacd will exit and log this message along with the cause, which is most likely a low-level system resource problem.
When a client connects to guacd, it must accept the connection in order for communication to ensue. If it cannot even accept the connection, no communication between server and client will happen, and this error will be logged. The cause of the error will be logged in the same entry. Possible causes include permissions problems, or lack of server resources.
When a client connects to guacd, it must create a new process to handle the connection while the old guacd process continues to listen for new connections. If, for any reason, guacd cannot create this process, the connection from that client will be denied, and the cause of the error will be logged. Possible causes include permissions problems, or lack of server resources.
When guacd receives a connection, and it creates a new process to handle that connection, it gains a copy of the file descriptor that the client will use for communication. As this connection can never be closed unless all references to the descriptor are closed, the server must close its copy such that the client is the only remaining holder of the file descriptor. If the server cannot close the descriptor, it will log this error message along with the cause.
During the course of a Guacamole session, guacd must occasionally "ping" the client to make sure it is still alive. This ping takes the form of a "sync" instruction, which the client is obligated to respond to as soon as it is received. If guacd cannot send this instruction, this error will be logged, along with the cause. Chances are the connection has simply been closed, and this error can be ignored.
After the client plugin is finished (for the time being) with handling server messages, the socket is automatically flushed. If the server cannot flush this socket for some reason, such as the connection already being closed, you will see this error. Normally, this error does not indicate a problem, but rather that the client has simply closed the connection.
While the client plugin is running, guacd will occasionally ask the plugin to check and handle any messages that it may have received from the server it connected to. If the client plugin fails for some reason while doing this, this error will be logged, and the cause of the error will likely be logged in previous log entries by the client plugin.
During the course of a Guacamole session, instructions are sent from client to server which are to be handled by the client plugin. If an instruction cannot be read, this error will be logged. Usually this means simply that the connection was closed, but it could also indicate that the version of the client in use is so old that it doesn't support the current Guacamole protocol at all. If the cause looks like the connection was closed (end of stream reached, etc.), this log entry can be ignored. Otherwise, if the first two numbers of the version numbers of all Guacamole components match, you have probably found a bug.
This error indicates that a client plugin failed inside the handler for a specific instruction. When the server receives instructions from the client, it then invokes specific instruction handles within the client plugin. In general, this error is not useful to a user or system administrator. If the cause looks benign, such as reaching the end of a stream (the connection closed), it can be ignored as normal. Otherwise, this error can indicate a bug either in the client plugin or in a library used by the client plugin.
It can also indicate a problem in the remote desktop server which is causing the client plugin to fail while communicating with it.
During the handshake of the Guacamole protocol, the server expects a very specific sequence of instructions to be received. If the wrong instructions are received, or the connection is abruptly closed during the handshake, the above error will occur.
In the case that the cause is the connection closing, this is normal, and probably just means that the client disconnected before the initial handshake completed.
If the connection was not closed abruptly, but instead the wrong instruction was received, this could mean either that the connecting client is from an incompatible version of Guacamole (and thus does not know the proper handshake procedure) or you have found a bug. Check whether all installed components came from the same upstream release bundle.
During the handshake of the Guacamole protocol, the server must expose all parameters used by the client plugin via the args instruction. If this cannot be sent, you will see this error in the logs. The cause will be included in the error message, and usually just indicates that the connection was closed during the handshake, and thus the handshake cannot continue.
When the client connects, it sends an instruction to guacd informing it what protocol it wishes to use. If the corresponding client plugin cannot be found or used for any reason, this message will appear in the logs. Normally this indicates that the corresponding client plugin is not actually installed. The cause listed after the error message will indicate whether this is the case.
After the client plugin is loaded, an initialization function provided by the client plugin is invoked. If this function fails, then the client itself cannot be created, and this error will be logged. Usually this indicates that one or more of the parameters given to the client plugin are incorrect or malformed. Check the configuration of the connection in use at the time.
The VNC client plugin must wait for messages sent by the VNC server, and handle them when they arrive. If there was an error while waiting for a message from the VNC server, this error message will be displayed. Usually this means that the VNC server closed the connection, or there is a problem with the VNC server itself, but the true cause of the error will be logged.
When messages are received from the VNC server, libvncclient must handle them and then invoke the functions of libguac-client-vnc as necessary. If libvncclient fails during the handling of a received message, this error will be logged, along with (hopefully) the cause. This may indicate a problem with the VNC server, or a lack of support within libvncclient.
If one of the parameters given, such as "width", "height", or "color-depth", is invalid (not an integer, for example), you will receive this error. Check the parameters of the connection in use and try again.
FreeRDP provides a plugin called "cliprdr" which provides clipboard support for RDP. libguac-client-rdp loads this plugin in order to support clipboard, as well. If this plugin could not be loaded, then clipboard support will not be available, and the reason will be logged.
In order to support sound, libguac-client-rdp builds a plugin for FreeRDP called "guac_rdpsnd" which must be loaded for sound to be available. If libguac-client-rdp cannot load this plugin, sound will not work, and the reason will be logged. A likely explanation is that libguac-client-rdp was built from source, and the directory specified for FreeRDP's installation location was incorrect.
When clipboard support is loaded, libguac-client-rdp informs the RDP server of all supported clipboard data types. The RDP server is required to send only those types supported by the client. If the server decides to send an unsupported type anyway, libguac-client-rdp ignores the data sent, and logs this message.
Your servlet container will have logs which the web application
side of Guacamole will log errors to. In the case of Tomcat, this is
usually catalina.out or
HOSTNAME.loglocalhost.log).
Errors in the relating to the
user-mapping.xml file usually indicate
that either the XML is malformed, or the file itself cannot be
found.
If you specify a connection with a
<connection> tag, it must have a
corresponding name set via the name attribute.
If it does not, then the XML is malformed, and this error
will be logged. No users will be able to login.
Each parameter specified with a <param>
tag must have a corresponding name set via the
name attribute. If it does not, then the
XML is malformed, and this error will be logged. No users
will be able to login.
Character data (text not within angle brackets) can only
exist within the <param> tag. If it exists
elsewhere, then the XML is malformed, and this error will be
logged. No users will be able to login.
There are only two legal values for the
encoding attribute of the
<authorize> tag: plain
(indicating plain text) and md5 (indicating a
value hashed with the MD5 digest). If any other value is
used, then the XML is malformed, and this error will be
logged. No users will be able to login.
If for any reason the user mapping file cannot be read
(the servlet container lacks read permission for the file,
the file does not exist, etc.), this error will be logged.
Check guacamole.properties to see where
the user mapping file is specified to exist, and then check
that is both exists and is readable by your servlet
container.
If a property is malformed or a required property is missing, an error describing the problem will be logged.
If Guacamole or an extension of Guacamole requires a
specific property in
guacamole.properties, but this
property is not defined, this error will be logged. Check
which properties are required by the authentication provider
(or other extensions) in use, and then compare that against
the properties within
guacamole.properties.
The auth-provider property allows you to
specify a custom authentication provider class which will
handle all authentication, but these classes must implement
the AuthenticationProvider interface.
If the class specified does not, this error will be logged.
Check that your authentication provider class implements
AuthenticationProvider (if you
implemented it yourself), and verify that you are specifying
the correct class.
If you are certain that the class specified is correct,
you may have placed the .jar file for your authentication
provider in the wrong directory. Make sure the .jar file is
in the directory specified by the lib-directory
parameter in guacamole.properties.
Guacamole requires that the
guacamole.properties file is in the
classpath of your servlet container. If it is not, this
error will be logged. Check that
guacamole.properties is in the
proper location, and then restart your servlet
container.
If you are using the authentication provider included with
Guacamole, it requires the basic-user-mapping
property to be set. If this property is missing, you will
see this error. Add the missing property to
guacamole.properties, restart your
servlet container, and try again.
If someone attempts to login with invalid credentials, or someone attempts to access a resource or connection that does not exist or they do not have access to, errors regarding the invalid attempt will be logged.
A user attempted to connect using the HTTP tunnel, and while the tunnel does exist and is attached to their session, they are not actually logged in. Normally, this isn't strictly possible, as a user has to have logged in for a tunnel to be attached to their session, but as it isn't an impossibility, this error does exist. If you see this error, it could mean that the user logged out at the same time that they made a connection attempt.
A user attempted to connect to a configuration with a given ID, and while that configuration does exist, they are not authorized to use it. This could mean that the user is trying to access things they have no privileges for, or that they are trying to access configurations they legitimately should, but are actually logged out.
The tunnel frequently returns errors if guacd is killed, the connection is closed, or the client abruptly closes the connection.
An attempt was made to use a tunnel which does not actually exist. This is usually just the JavaScript client sending a leftover message or two while it hasn't realized that the server has disconnected. If this error happens consistently and is associated with Guacamole generally not working, it could be a bug.
A connection attempt for a specific configuration was made, but the connection failed, and no tunnel was created. This is usually because the user was not authorized to use that connection, and thus no tunnel was created for access to that connection.
When the JavaScript client is communicating with the HTTP tunnel, it must provide data in the query string describing whether it wants to connect, read, or write. If this data is missing as the error indicates, there is a bug in the HTTP tunnel.
An attempt to read from the tunnel was made, but the tunnel in question has already reached the end of stream (the connection is closed). This is mostly an informative error, and can be ignored.
An attempt to read from the tunnel was made, but the tunnel in question is already closed. This can happen if the client or guacd have closed the connection, but the client has not yet settled down and is still making read attempts. As there can be lags between when connections close and when the client realizes it, this can be safely ignored.
If guacd closes the connection suddenly without allowing the client to complete the initial handshake required by the Guacamole protocol, this error will appear in the logs. If you see this error, you should check syslog for any errors logged by guacd to determine why it closed the connection so early.
The Guacamole protocol imposes a strict format which requires individual parts of instructions (called "elements") to end with either a ";" or "," character. If they do not, then something has gone wrong during transmission. This usually indicates a bug in the client plugin in use, guacd, or libguac.
The Guacamole protocol imposes a strict format which requires each element of an instruction to have a length prefix, which must be composed entirely of numeric characters (digits 0 through 9). If a non-numeric character is read, then something has gone wrong during transmission. This usually indicates a bug in the client plugin in use, guacd, or libguac.