I don't know if you're still stuck on this one but I can try to help with my
limited knowledge.
For ease of use you would presumably like something like this...
The users to come in one morning, turn on their diskless clients and see a
slightly different looking login window.
They type in their username and password as usual. After login they see a
banner message telling them the details of the change. In particular it
tells them exactly where to find the various applications that they use
daily and who to call if they cannot find the relevant application.
These are the things I think you will need to fix to get this working...
Do this out of office hours otherwise it will cause chaos!
1) Stop the Sun box from responding to the XDMCP broadcasts. I am making
an assumption here that you are using XDMCP rather than the old fashioned
(very old fashioned) method that used to be that the UNIX server machine
manually attempted to connect to a list of servers that were configured in
its Xservers file. I would be very surprised if you are not using XDMCP.
2) The Linux box needs to respond to the XDMCP broadcasts. As Olaf
suggested this can be a bit tricky these days with all this modern Linux X
server configuration! The good news is that behind the scenes the kdm
server (the equivalent of the XDM server on old UNIX boxes and indeed on
very old Linux boxes) seems to use the same basic config file structure as
traditional UNIX. The bad news is that, from my experience and some others,
kdm can be harder to control and often seems to not read its config files in
the way that you would expect. I would recommend that you first try the
graphical GUI front end configuration tools (like YaST2, etc.) as described
in the SuSE manuals then later resort to editing config files. As a last
resort consider using the traditional xdm daemon instead of kdm. From what
I can see what you loose is mostly eye candy and you can configure it to run
kdm and the KDE desktop in full anyway.
3) Test a client diskless workstation to see if you can log on to the SuSE
workstation.
4) Once that's working, use traditional methods to run the CAD application
that's on the Sun box.
The best place to start is to run a command window in KDE ("konsole"), then
telnet to the Sun box and try starting X applications from the shell on the
Sun machine.
It is possible that you will face an obstacle with security. It depends on
how the X security works on these "diskless clients" of yours. I think the
best thing is to first try running programs then if you get security
problems then try looking at the manuals for the "diskless clients" and
finally come back to this mailing list if you still can't get it working.
5) Once you've proved the concept in step 4 above (and sorted out the
security issues) then you will need to smooth the process out for users.
The first problem is that of logins. Their logins to Linux must be the same
ones that they used on the Sun box, otherwise all your users need to learn
new usernames and passwords. Either set up accounts for all the users that
mirror the Sun accounts (not practical if you have hundreds of users) or use
NIS or NIS+ to get the Linux box to use the Sun server as a password
server - this should not load the Sun machine much and will ensure that you
only have one point of change for logins and that username/passwords will
match between the two boxes. If you're unsure how to do this then ask on
the suse-security@suse.com mailing list, it's very active and people are
extremely helpful from what I've seen.
6) As well as getting the two logins synchronised you will almost certainly
want the process of running the CAD application to be done by a simple
button press, rather than the users all having to use telnet to log on to
the Sun box then running the program by hand, right!? To do this you need
to use SSH to connect to the Sun box - telnet is too primitive. Make sure
an ssh server is on the Sun box, it should be. Linux definitely comes with
the OpenSSH client installed on all distributions. You should then test SSH
to the Sun box and running an X app. as in step 4 above.
7) You will have noticed that SSH requires a username/password just like
telnet so seems no better. Actually SSH has a number of methods for
automatic login. I would think that the best method is an /etc/hosts.equiv
type method listing the IP address of the Linux box but it's up to you, it
depends on how secure you want it to be. Read the man page for ssh and sshd
on Linux to get some idea of how these things work, if all else fails then
come back to suse-security@suse.com, lots of people can help with advice on
how to get the various public key methods working.
8) Once synchronised passwords and automatic login to the Sun shell in
konsole are both up and running then you're nearly there. To practice try
running the CAD application with one command like this...
ssh -f yoursunbox.yourorg.co.no /usr/bin/yourCADapplication
...if it works then all you have to do is create a button for this command.
Use the menu editors for KDE to do this.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Carl
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terje J. Hanssen"
To offload an older Sun/Solaris CAD application server from running also CDE sessions for remote X desktops (diskless clients), I wish to possibly introduce a SuSE Linux workstation as a KDE session host/server.
That is, instead of getting remote CDE (dt)login from the Sun server, the SuSe/KDE desktop should handle and supply KDM user login, window manager and desktop apps, in addition to displays for the remote X Cad-application running on the Sun server (execution host) as before.
Where the production data files (drawings from the Cad apps) now most effectively should be saved, on the Sun application/file server as before or nfs mounted on the SuSE workstation as new file server, is also a question of load and speed to be tested.
Besides the Remote X apps mini HowTo, I wish to hear how to configure the above solution to be transparent and easy for the user, and possibly experiences, suggestions and additional helpful docs for this setup?
TIA/Terje
-- To unsubscribe, email: suse-kde-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands, email: suse-kde-help@suse.com Please do not cross-post to suse-linux-e