[Discuss] FreeNx

[pw]

John Blomfield wrote:

> Thanks, I am beginning to get my mind around all of this.  I have set 
> about trying out all the options but I have been unable to get freeNx 
> and 2X servers to work.  Probably a combination of bugs in the distro 
> implementations and my incompetence. However, I have got plain old vnc 
> working perfectly. I found it relatively simple compared to the others 
> and a wealth of "how to's" around to help.  As yet I have not been brave 
> enough to try your X server solution.  I realise that vnc is not secure 
> but that hardly matters in my limited home environment and I have an 
> external firewall router.
> 
> John Blomfield


VNC is causing your resolution problems because it doesn't use
a local config for screen resolution. You actually need to start
the vnc server with a

vncserver -geometry 1024x768 -depth 24 :1

or what ever you want the resolution to be on the client side.

man vncserver for more options.

VNC is *not* X windows, it's a virtual desktop client that uses
a session defined for the server and simply passes 'screenshots'
of that GUI session to the client.

If you don't wish to mess with the setting up the vnc server resolution
for each client you'd best get Alan to run you through the whole X thin
client thing. He does that stuff in his sleep.

The other problem with vnc is that you can only have separate
user accounts if everyone logs into the server as their own user id,
runs their own instance of vncserver with a unique display number.
This again requires the resolution and bit depth of the display to be
defined server side when vncserver is run up. No local settings will 
ever be used.

The big danger with vnc is that one person, logged in as root, sets up a
single session *as root user* and then everyone else is using that
session *as root user*. Bye bye security...bye bye...

If you use an X windows client, instead of vnc, everyone can just set up 
their sessions as they like *from within X windows* without having to
log in using a shell to set it up. Then their session settings will be
associated with their user id. You also won't have unused vncserver
instances running on your server when nobody is using them. Also all
the people who are logging in are limited, by security, to the resources 
applicable to their unix user.


Peter




Peter