[Thinlinc-technical] engineering my Sun Ray replacement

[Peter Astrand]

Hi! To have a kiosk type setup, where clients are automatically logging in 
to the server, we recommend that you create one user account per terminal. 
Then, the client is configured to automatically login with this user name. 
As credentials, you can use a password, a SSH public key, or existing 
kerberos tickets. For example, if you are using passwords, you can edit 
tlclient.conf on the terminal so that it contains:

SERVER_NAME=myserver
LOGIN_NAME=terminalxyz
PASSWORD=6c696e7578
AUTOLOGIN=1

The password is specified using HEX character pairs, and can be retrieved 
with:

$ python -c 'import thinlinc.ctccommon; print thinlinc.ctccommon.string2hexascii("linux")'
6c696e7578

Then, the client can be started as "tlclient --loop". This will give you 
an "always logged in" session.


On the server side, you could continue to use zenity, but I'd recommend 
our "profile chooser" instead. Connecting to WTS servers based on 
name/group/realm should be easy.

When it comes to connecting to other servers using XDMCP, we have very 
little experience with this. In principle, it could work with adding a 
suitable -query parameter for Xvnc to the /vsmagent/xserver_args config 
parameter. You also need to remove "-nolisten tcp". However, running the 
desktop+applications and the Xserver on two different machines is not 
optimal from neither a performance nor security perspective. If possible, 
it's better to run the desktop environment on the actual ThinLinc servers.


Also, if the users have their usernames and passwords, it's better to let 
them enter their credentials in the ThinLinc Client GUI at the client 
side. Then they will get their own sessions, running under their real uid. 
This makes it possible to reconnect from other clients etc.


Regards,
Peter


On Thu, 18 Jul 2013, Seth Galitzer wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Like many others this week, I'm making my way here in light of the official 
> death knell of the Sun Ray product line.  Thanks to those lurking on the 
> Sunray-Users list who brought me here.
>
> Ultimately, what I'd like to do is use Thinlinc as a drop-in replacement for 
> my SRS installation.  I think I do my Sun Ray setup a little different than 
> most, and I'm hoping for some guidance on how to replicate that in Thinlinc. 
> My clients boot up and run what used to be called a kiosk app.  Basically, 
> they go straight to a desktop without initial user login and run a single 
> application (without a full desktop shell).
>
> In my case, the single application is what I call a session chooser, built 
> using zenity.  The user can select from one of three sessions: two different 
> WTS servers (via RDP), based on their login "realm", and a Linux server (via 
> XDMCP).  Once the session is selected, the remote client runs and they are 
> presented with a full-screen remote session for that host, where they log and 
> continue using that desktop.
>
> This setup is currently used for a teaching lab with 40 desktops.  All users 
> should have their own concurrent independent sessions on whatever host they 
> eventually connect to.  We have considered expanding to include office staff 
> systems eventually, but for now, the lab is the primary focus.
>
> On the thin client devices themselves, I'm exploring options for hardware 
> replacements (too bad the DTUs have closed firmware), thanks also for the 
> many recommendations on that subject.  I figure I'll need a PXE-boot setup, 
> which I more or less know how to do already.  I've just started working 
> through the documentation, but I could use a little guidance in streamlining 
> the software setup to match (or at least come close to) what I described 
> above.  Pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance, and looking forward to continuing this adventure.
>
> Seth
>
> -- 
> Seth Galitzer
> Systems Coordinator
> Computing and Information Sciences
> Kansas State University
> http://www.cis.ksu.edu/~sgsax
> sgsax at ksu.edu
> 785-532-7790
> _______________________________________________
> Thinlinc-technical mailing list
> Thinlinc-technical at lists.cendio.se
> http://lists.cendio.se/mailman/listinfo/thinlinc-technical
>


---
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