Remote GUI

deepblue · #1 16th June 2004, 09:17 AM

Okay, i'm trying to accomplish something i would of thought easy enough, but obviously not. Ive got a standard installation of FC2 installed and running.

Okay, i currently have a Fedora Core 2 based server which runs 24/7. I want to be able to connect to it using something like VNC from college/work etc.

Now VNC can handle this with no issues, but what im lookin for is a more user orientated soloution.

I want my users to be able to connect to my server and get the same login prompt as i do. I.E. Ability to chose which window manager to chose etc.

Can i do this with something like X forwarding over SSH or rdesktop?

Thanks,

Deep Blue

fjleal · #2 16th June 2004, 09:55 AM

If you login using ssh, you can execute both CLI commands on the shell and graphical applications. Ssh will tunnel your graphical output from the server to the client machine, no special configuration needed.

foolish · #3 16th June 2004, 11:08 AM

If you want to log in and have a full desktop, use vnc. There's a guide at this forum on how to set it up, and a very good guide at fedoranews.org as well.

dnar · #4 16th June 2004, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by fjleal
If you login using ssh, you can execute both CLI commands on the shell and graphical applications. Ssh will tunnel your graphical output from the server to the client machine, no special configuration needed.

[nod]although the machine you sit at is technically the server in X lingo.

deepblue · #5 17th June 2004, 03:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by foolish
If you want to log in and have a full desktop, use vnc. There's a guide at this forum on how to set it up, and a very good guide at fedoranews.org as well.

As i wrote in my post, i don't want to use VNC as i need to be able to support 2 users at once.

taylor65 · #6 17th June 2004, 03:57 AM

If you're running FC2 (or any linux/unix version) on the client, use Xnest, it'll give you a login screen just like when you're at the console. If you're using Windows as a client, use some Xwindow software, like KeaX.

To allow clients to attach to your server, go into System Settings -> Login Screen. Change your default remote login screen to graphical, and change the XDMCP tab to enable XDMCP. And if you have a firewall running, you have to allow udp:177 and tcp:6030.

deepblue · #7 17th June 2004, 11:51 AM

Thanx a bunch! Will test this ASAP and let y'all know

deepblue · #8 17th June 2004, 11:38 PM

Okay, i can connect to the server using X-Win32 and it works exactly as required. The one problem i seem to have is, i cant access it out of my network.

In my routers config pages, ive set port 177UDP and 6030TCP to forward to 192.168.0.200 which is the servers IP, yet i get nothing when i try to connect to it?

Any ideas?

Varkk · #9 18th June 2004, 12:20 AM

port 6000 tcp is X11

taylor65 · #10 18th June 2004, 01:19 AM

Glad to hear that worked for you.

192.168.0.0/16 is a non-routable address. You have to be doing NAT on this router. You may want to do some research on how to get X11 forwarding to work with NAT on your router. Also, you need to open up random high tcp ports from the client to the server for the return packets. In my first post I only mentioned what was needed for iptables config.

If your firewall won't work for this, another option is to tunnel it through ssh (tcp 22). If the NAT doesn't work for X11 forwarding directly, try using it via ssh if you're client supports it. Be sure to turn on ssh on the server.

Varkk · #11 18th June 2004, 05:31 PM

Just a quick question slightly on this topic. How much bandwidth does X11 use for an application window, say xemacs?

crackers · #12 19th June 2004, 04:57 PM

A butt-load, compared to more optimized solutions like VNC. Firstly, it's not a compressed format, so if you have a lot of screen updates going, you can get pretty hard. As a little test, I just opened a remote XTerm and whenever the screen updates, i see a bandwidth "bump" of about 3Kbps. I think you can use your imagination and see what running a full-out GUI would do...

deepblue · #13 1st August 2004, 12:56 PM

I had no issues using my server like this for 2 months now. Except for vids, the screen updates almost at normal speeds!

kosmosik · #14 1st August 2004, 01:13 PM

try X11 over SSH (slow)
ftp://ftp.wsisiz.edu.pl/pub/pc/pozyt...serwer/mix.zip
here you'll get free (as in beer) X server for Windows... there is also howto but in polish. generaly you can get it running by just looking at provided screenshots:
http://pomoc.wsisiz.edu.pl/ssh/xprog/

you can also try nomachine NX - it is very cool but it is comercial (server is commercial, clients are free) - it is very good.
http://www.nomachine.com/