Seems like there are some interesting options to be considered for ASPing X-11 applications? Is anyone using Citrix on Solaris the Solaris version hacked to run on Linux?
It seems like LTSP/LTSP methodology is really a way to network boot thin clients. As suggested on could have a local LTSP boot server/VPN server on site to speed up the time of network boots and provide security for connectivity to centralized applications. Citrix works very well for distributing single applications over low-bandwidth links. Depending on the application, the LTSP workstation could kick off an "application export request" just after starting X. However, it seems that one should be able to publish a single application to an X-11 user as well. Why not have single applications export their displays over a network with some kind of LB-X on the workstation? I've used tiny-VNC with pretty good results as low as dialup…. However, I believe that VNC will only export the full window manager…. I have seen people needlessly publish full desktops to end users with Citrix and RDP. The multiple desktop situation creates a serious confusion for the end user. If you cannot host the entire desktop via ASP and find yourself delivering full window managers to the users, I would recommend having the WMs be as different form the native OS WM as possible, with as few features as possible, and very user friendly desktop features to launch the needed apps. Confusion between a workstations OS and the remote OS will otherwise drive you and your clients crazy. .02 -----Original Message----- There is a version of VNC called TightVNC which is bandwidth optimized. I've had pretty Good success using normal VNC to connect to remote servers for administration purposes. I think it is a definite possibility. One other thing you can't do that is possible with Citrix, etc. is publishing just a Specific application (something common on the ASP front) - Mike > -----Original Message----- > From: Ragnar Wisløff [mailto:ragnar@wi...] > Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 8:36 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Ltsp-discuss] LTSP ASP solution ?! > > > Sitat [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > > Hi All! > > > > I've got a request from an ASP, if it is possible to run an > LTSP over > > ADSL or some kind of boradband internet connection? > > Two things imediately popped into my mind and I could'nt give > hime > > any good > > answer: > > > > - how much bandwidth will such a solution use ? > > Assuming you will use a graphical user interface, the higher end > of standard ADSL just about works, say up to about 1 Mb/s in and > 384 kb/s out. There are techniques you could use to reduce X > bandwidth, but then these are not standard LTSP. As far as I know > LTSP is designed to be used in a LAN environment. X is a > bandwidth hog, nothing like RDP or ICA, and the response would be > bad. It's easy to try, set up any Linux server on one end (with > plenty of bandwidth available to it), ssh into it and start up a > graphical application. In my experience it's useable, but not > good enough for serious work. > > > - What about security ? > > Probably the most simple solution is to have a VPN connection. > There were some questions by a Swedish team some weeks ago who > looked like they were trying to get LTSP to work across a VPN, > but I don't know if they were succesful (it should work, though). > > > > -- > Mvh Ragnar Wisløff > ------------------ > life is a reach. then you gybe. > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek > Welcome to geek heaven. > http://thinkgeek.com/sf > _____________________________________________________________________ > 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 > From: Jason A. Pattie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> /mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=2138260Re: LTSP ASP solution ?! 2002-09-19 07:57 If you are really serious about having the thin clients boot off the Internet, I would also recommend a VPN connection between the offices. However, if you want to maintain any semblance of performance, you will need to modify the thin client environment from a "pure" NFS mounted root filesystem scenario to a purely RAMdisk root filesystem. This won't be that difficult, but the thin clients will possibly take a few minutes to boot up depending on how much of the LTSP root filesystem you package into the RAMdisk, especially if you want to run local applications. You will also only want to use VNC or lbxproxy or dxpc protocols, instead of straight X protocol. This is easily accomplished by adding the vncviewer and a handful of other tools to the RAMdisk image. If you go with a RAMdisk image, you will need more memory in all your thin clients. Probably on the order of 96MB of RAM possibly 64MB on the low end. That should be enough space to allow X to run with a VNC session and store the RAMdisk image completely in memory. You will not be able to take advantage of network swap space, although you would be able to take advantage of local swap space if the thin clients have hard drives (which you probably don't want). Another scenario would be to have a full workstation in the remote office that all the thin clients boot from, but configure the lts.conf and the full workstation to use the other office's resources as their login and application servers. Ragnar Wisløff wrote: >Sitat [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > > >>Hi All! >> >>I've got a request from an ASP, if it is possible to run an LTSP >>over ADSL >>or some kind of boradband internet connection? >>Two things imediately popped into my mind and I could'nt give >> >> >hime > > >>any good >>answer: >> >>- how much bandwidth will such a solution use ? >> >> > >Assuming you will use a graphical user interface, the higher end >of standard ADSL just about works, say up to about 1 Mb/s in and >384 kb/s out. There are techniques you could use to reduce X >bandwidth, but then these are not standard LTSP. As far as I know >LTSP is designed to be used in a LAN environment. X is a >bandwidth hog, nothing like RDP or ICA, and the response would be >bad. It's easy to try, set up any Linux server on one end (with >plenty of bandwidth available to it), ssh into it and start up a >graphical application. In my experience it's useable, but not >good enough for serious work. > > > >>- What about security ? >> >> > >Probably the most simple solution is to have a VPN connection. >There were some questions by a Swedish team some weeks ago who >looked like they were trying to get LTSP to work across a VPN, >but I don't know if they were succesful (it should work, though). > > > >-- >Mvh Ragnar Wisløff >------------------ >life is a reach. then you gybe. > > >------------------------------------------------------- >This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek >Welcome to geek heaven. >http://thinkgeek.com/sf >_____________________________________________________________________ >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 > > > -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. From From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> /mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=2138959Re: LTSP ASP solution ?! 2002-09-19 09:27 Sitat "Jason A. Pattie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > If you are really serious about having the thin clients boot off > the > Internet, I would also recommend a VPN connection between the > offices. This is the only way to set up the connection, it gives you encryption and solves a number of routing issues as well. I think some of the VPN implementations can do some compression as well, but I might mistaken. > However, if you want to maintain any semblance of performance, you > will > need to modify the thin client environment from a "pure" NFS > mounted > root filesystem scenario to a purely RAMdisk root filesystem. This > > won't be that difficult, but the thin clients will possibly take a > few > minutes to boot up depending on how much of the LTSP root > filesystem you > package into the RAMdisk, especially if you want to run local > applications. You will also only want to use VNC or lbxproxy or > dxpc > protocols, instead of straight X protocol. This is easily > accomplished > by adding the vncviewer and a handful of other tools to the RAMdisk > > image. If you go with a RAMdisk image, you will need more memory > in all > your thin clients. Probably on the order of 96MB of RAM possibly > 64MB > on the low end. That should be enough space to allow X to run with > a > VNC session and store the RAMdisk image completely in memory. You > will > not be able to take advantage of network swap space, although you > would > be able to take advantage of local swap space if the thin clients > have > hard drives (which you probably don't want). This will alleviate some of the bandwidth problems. Running some VNC variant departs quite a bit from straight LTSP, though. The guy asked about using LTSP, so I tried to answer him on that :-) > > Another scenario would be to have a full workstation in the remote > > office that all the thin clients boot from, but configure the > lts.conf > and the full workstation to use the other office's resources as > their > login and application servers. Once I gave some thought to this idea as well, having a tiered LTSP-environment with "slave" servers, but I never tested it out. Anyone look at that? -- Mvh Ragnar Wisløff ------------------ life is a reach. then you gybe. ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _____________________________________________________________________ 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
