remote graphical logon/login
 

I have a media box/backup server running Arch that I use to store DVDs on and then play via a TV out card to save buying new copies of Mermaidia every couple of months.

I used to rely on a KVM switch but since I switched to a USB keyboard I now use krdc to access it.

Trouble is, if I shut down the server I have to logon blind via a local keyboard and then use krdc after kde has started. There must be a way to get a remote graphical login...any ideas?

Whilst I'm here is there a particular reason that xvncviewer et al all fail with 'rect too big' but krdc works flawlessly?

You could look into NoMachines NX client and server program. Its fast, even on slow connections. They have just released a 'no charge ' server version that limits the number of clients connecting. There is also a FreeNX server available for most distros. The NoMachine client is free. Here is a link for download.

http://www.nomachine.com/download.php

Well, NX won't solve the problem of getting the server logged in on the server itself if tha tis actually required..... If all you are really after is a remote screen the nx is great. It won't effect what you would see on a monitor, however. It acts similar to Terminal Services for Windows NT.

If this is a home setup would you consider having it logging in automatically for you? My Fedora machine at home automatically logs in when I turn it on. I live alone, I don't have any worries about people getting on it that shouldn't be.

I have toyed with NX and didn't see anything much better than KDE's desktop sharing.

It is a local box on a 100Mbps link so bandwidth is not a problem.

I think you may be right on the auto login...a suitably restricted user account should sort me out but it is frustrating that there is no way to log on remotely using X.

If it was an XP box rdesktop would do exactly what I want (I use that a lot...boot box, rdesktop @ CLI, GUI logon, voila!). I'm sure there must be a way I just can't find it :-(

I must be missing something.

Why not run OpenSSH daemon on the server, set it to enable X forwarding, then just enter this line from a bash shell on the client:

ssh -Y -f myserverIP xterm

This'll open an X-shell and if you want a full X session, you can just issue a startx.

If otchie did that would the server then be logged in? By that I mean if he switched the KVM to that computer would he still see a graphical login screen or the desktop after he did what you said? That is what he wants is to see have the desktop come up through the video card, but be able to do it remotely.

I assume this is what you want, correct?

Yep, what I want is to be able to,

1. push the start button on the server with no mouse or keyboard or monitor
2. have it go to a graphical init5
3. call up the display output over IP LAN from my desktop
4. login graphically and fire off vlc commands so that the videos play local to the server and are therefore pumped out the TV out to the kid's TV upstairs so I can avoid watching Mermaidia AGAIN.

It is the default behaviour for Win200/XP accessed via rdesktop (and Network Terminal Services viewers)

So far as I know no amount of seemingly clever X redirects will help as they will result in the DVD playing on the client X server and not on the server X server(so no Barbie on the TV out).

I need vnc or whatever to be active before logon so I can logon over IP.

No. In this case the session would be strictly remote. Now I get it; you want to have a local session with a VNC-like remote connection.

The only way to do that, I think, is to have a script accomplish a login into an X session at boot time, and then to run a VNC server.

so we're back to an auto-login user.

I think that will work right enough but I can't help thinking that it is somehow 'wrong'. Do we really lack a graphical remote logon facility? Maybe I'll try to get vncservcer to be called just after startx.

If you want a vnc-session started up at boot and show a login screen, the easiest way is to install X11vnc.

Go here: http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/#faq and have a look under Question 50 to get it working.

Edit: ...and you probably want to use the "Continuously"-option.

I always wondered what X11vnc was good for :-)

That seems to be the exact thing...even contains examples for gdm & kdm.

Thanks.

How to log in to Kubuntu with x11vnc
 

I was going to post this under "success stories" but this might be a better place to post it. I'll let the mods decide if it should be moved. It is somewhat, but not entirely, related to this discussion. This applies to KDE on Ubuntu (that is, Kubuntu).

Normally you would run x11vnc after you've already logged in to the remote computer. That is, you would:

1. at first be sitting at the "remote" computer, log in, and use the computer's graphical interface. Then
2. you could walk away to a different computer (the "local" computer),
3. run x11vnc on the remote computer, and
4. run a VNC viewer program, such as Krdc (built-in to KDE) to continue using the remote computer

Note that at step 3, you have already walked away from the remote computer, so how are you going to run x11vnc on the remote computer so that you can connect to it? Well, you connect to it via ssh, which gives you a text interface, and you can type the "x11vnc" command. Once x11vnc is running, you can connect to the graphic desktop.

But what if, from the very beginning, you were never at the remote computer for Step 1 and 2? That is, NO ONE is logged in at the remote computer. If you try to remotely run x11vnc, it will complain, "But you're not using the graphical desktop right now, so I can't connect to your desktop." Actually, what it literally says is:
The problem is, with Kubuntu (which uses kdm, the KDE Display Manager), the auth file is NOT located at /var/lib/kdm/A:*, like it says in the example, and it took me forever to locate the file. It's at:

/var/run/xauth/A:0-qQPftr (well, the exact filename after the "A:" part will vary randomly)

With Kubuntu, I find that I can use the following command:

sudo x11vnc -auth /var/run/xauth/A* -display :0.0

So, from the office, I might ssh home to my home computer, type the command above, and then run a VNC viewer program like Krdc or VNC For Windows or whatever, and be greeted with a login screen asking me to type in my username and password. Thus I don't have to be logged in already to get x11vnc to work.

Hope this rather wordy post is able to help some of you out there. It's a solution to a problem I had. Hacker Rule #2: No Problem Should Ever Have To Be Solved Twice. I solved it, so here you go.

I want to go my logical partition /dev/sda5 in graphical mode.

thanks

pinu

I want to go my logical partition /dev/sda5 in graphical mode.

I'm not sure what you mean. You probably need to ask the question in a better way.

See http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html for details.

1. You haven't really asked any question. Perhaps you should say, "How can I go to my logical partition /dev/sda5 in graphical mode?"
2. I'm not sure how someone would "go to" a partition. I think you mean that you want to see the files and directories (folders) on your logical partition. Perhaps you should say, "How can I see the files and directories in my logical partition /dev/sda5 in graphical mode?"
3. This discussion is about how to use a computer that's somewhere else ("remote server") through a computer that's with you ("local client"). I'm not sure how that's related to seeing files and directories in your partition. Are you trying to see the files and directories on the remote computer? Perhaps you should say, "How can I see the files and directories in my logical partition /dev/sda5 of my remote computer in graphical mode?"

If indeed that is your question, then the answer would be: connect using x11vnc as described above, and then see the files and directories in my logical partition /dev/sda5 in graphical mode the same way you would do it on a local computer.

If your next question is, "How can I see the files and directories in my logical partition /dev/sda5 in graphical mode on my local computer?", then the answer is: you are asking the question in the wrong discussion. If you don't know where to ask, start a new thread (discussion). If you don't know how to do that, ask here.

In this case x11vnc also says:which can be a handy way to find whereever the cookie file is being kept on an arbitrary distro.

This info should be printed closer to the dm list.