John,
Sounds like lots of good news. Nice work!
> Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 09:13:18 -0700 (PDT)
> From: John_Cuzzola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> *** Hi All,
> I have been using x0rfbserver and it CAN work with
remote
> (non-local) sessions (with caveats).
<snip>
>
> First set your lts.conf to runlevel 3 (or whichever ltsp
3 uses) so that
> it drops you into a shell prompt as root.
Okay, this is obviously not going to be a part of the final
product. :-) As you mention later, this can all be put
into an rc file and run automatically each time.
> ok now launch your X session like this (this is one long
line):
>
> /usr/X11R6/bin/xinit /usr/bin/X0rfbserver >& /dev/null --
/ltsbin/XF86_S3
> -ac -query <your ltsp server ip>
So, *all* workstations would *always* be running a
x0rfbserver? This is an undesirable requirement. This
puts a load on many terminals that may never need shadowing
help. Even for those who might occasionally need help,
they shouldn't have to always be running the x0rfbserver,
even if it is hidden. Some workstations are lowly 486's
with minimal RAM...
> This will launch x0rfbserver and give you a login screen.
You'll notice
> that x0rfbserver will ask you for the password. Just
leave it blank for
> now. To get rid of it simply run x0rfbserver as some
user. Enter the
> password then COPY the .x0rfbserver file from that users
home directory to
> the ltsp root. For me that would be:
/tftpboot/lts/ltsroot
Cool trick! Good work! :-)
> The x0rfbserver program can be shutdown by the user.
However, if they
> do their X session will terminate and send you back to
the login
> screen. (after changing your runlevel back to 5). I guess
they would learn
> very quickly not to shut the thing down. I tried some
simple stuff in
> order to hide it like issuing a -geometry directive and
moving the
> x0rfbserver box outside the viewing area but apparently
it doesn't honor
> it. I suppose it wouldn't be to big of a deal to edit the
source code and
> attempt to hide it (which I may look at when I get a free
moment - I'm
> sure the very capable programmers on this list can hack
something up
> quicker than I)
This is what I was talking about in my last message. We
don't want any visible face on this program. And in order
to remove the X interface from it, we'll need to modify the
source code.
I think our next step should be to contact the author(s) of
x0rfbserver and explain our requirements. Probably the
easiest way to get what we want is to ask for a feature and
get approval from the maintainer. We don't want to change
the code and then tell the maintainer that he should
incorporate our modifications or face a fork! If the
author has no time or interest in our mod, he or she could
at least recommend the best way to go about doing it, both
from a purely technical standpoint (which source files to
modify) and from a logistical standpoint (perhaps adding it
as a "plug-in" type feature instead of as a large
modification to the base code. I don't know, but let's
just contact the author first...
I envision a simple command-line arg that disables the
interactive components (X interface). The invocation of
the app would then just be a script run by the
administrator like this:
# the following line returns, leaving
# x0rfbserver running on the workstation (hopefully)
rsh ${WKSTN} /usr/X11R6/bin/x0rfbserver -stealth &
# the following line does not return until the admin quits
xrfbviewer ${WKSTN}:0
# thus, the x0rfbserver gets terminated only after the
viewer exits
rsh ${WKSTN} killall -9 x0rfbserver
Not sure about the details yet. Might not need the &.
Maybe better to just get the PID of the first rsh call and
kill it off from the server instead of starting another rsh
connection...
Sound good? Is this what other people are also imagining?
Jason
_______________________________________________________________
Don't miss the 2002 Sprint PCS Application Developer's Conference
August 25-28 in Las Vegas -- http://devcon.sprintpcs.com/adp/index.cfm
_____________________________________________________________________
Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss
For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.openprojects.net
