Remmina, NoMachine, or...?Remote Entry into KDE home server box on Local Lan: advice?
 

Hi.
I've got a home server I've been trying to set up, and remote into. On my previous distribution I used Gnome-based stuff; this time I decided to try KDE (Kubuntu 11). I've been using Remmina from my linuxmint laptops, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to make a permanent way to get to the KDE server, without being physically at the terminal to "send and invitation" (ala: Krfb).
I love Remmina. I've heard great stuff about NoMachine.
I'm a n00b at this stuff.
I've googled for a few days now, it can't be as hard as the stuff I'm reading about (it took like 30 minutes max to set up Remmina on my LAN...)

1). It's all local at this point: wireless laptop to a hub/router and RJ45 into the KDE box.
2) All my laptops have Gnome distros (currently). I.E. Mint, CentOS, Ubuntu, etc...
3) Security isn't an issue at all- I haven't set up SSH or proxy or outside access to the server anything yet (later this summer maybe).

Why I need it: I've got 6TB of NTFS data, from converting all my media, photos, music and pro audio stuff to something more secure (ext4 and CentOS 6.2 or similar). I need to organize and sort and want to log in from various laptops and sort files and folders on the KDE server.

What might be some of the best ways to do this, without having it take a week of my time (single dad, full time parent, full time job, full time court stuff).

super appreciated.
:D


p.s.
I put Kubuntu on there from reviews about the Samba sharing excellence. I can install something else as well, if that would be the easiest solution- or add a Gnome GUI shell, etc... I'm not attached to any particular distro at this point- (maybe CentOS 6+ or Mint 11...). I like Gnome.
3

No need to log on to the host machine's desktop, just do it from the filemanager on your machine.
If you don't need Windows connectivity forget about Samba (but that would work too).
Use ssh!
Install openssh-server on the host.
Use your filemanager to connect to sftp://host/path/to/folder and organise away...
Or (if f.ex. you want to use a non-network aware organising app) you could install sshfs on your local machine and mount the remote folder into your local filesystem.

ssh can also be used securely over the internet if you wanted.

NoMachine for remote access
 

If you need simple access to the remote display, NoMachine have just released in preview their new remote desktop access product "NoMachine". There's no virtual desktop involved, just access to the display. It is offering quite a lot, although some of the services are disabled still like file-transfer. Or there's the free edition which is the older version, though very stable.

I've installed openssh on my host.
I'm using Linuxmint/Nautilus as a file manager.
I also set up "filezilla" per this tutorial...

I only need to sort folders and files on the mounted NTFS drives on the host.
I can currently remote desktop in now (using Remmina, I've used NoMachine and loved it).
I don't currently need windows shares (I want to get rid of the NTFS and change them to ext3 or ext4 ASAP)...
What am I looking for if I google this, in setting up my Nautilus to auto-mount the local host's NTFS partitions? Is there a better file manager for this? I had NO idea I could mount the folders and sort them from my old laptop...!!! That is amazingly cool.

Thank you so much.
:D

Samba does not care what filesystem the data is stored on, so NTFS or ext 3/4 makes no difference.Gnome has some magic for making mounting drives by users easy, but for automounting at boot, /etc/fstab is the file to add a line to for each volume.

Thank you.
I tried out "Pysdm" (? I think that is what it was called) to automount the various volumes and it's working fine (system seems much slower now though, I might have managed some drives I didn't need to). Is editing the fstab a redundancy then?

ext3 or 4 is more for how linux formats store information on the drive (and security of data) vs. ntfs, so I guess that's more a tangent issue (and partially why I am sorting).
:P

On a side note, I gave up on Kubuntu (it's nice, but I'm too unfamiliar with it, prefer gnome surprisingly) and went back to LM11.10. Everything is running gnome for now. So technically, though I didn't figure out how to remote desktop into a KDE distro, my real aim was to file manage some attached storage, and it appears that such tasks can be done via a good file manager and some fairly mundane normal linux coolness.

I guess the question remains, do I have my file manager connect to the host, or mount the remote folder into my local file system- which sounds like the way to do it if one is using a non-network aware file manager. At my end, being new at how logical linux is and how it makes sense, I want to have the volumes mounted in the file manager, so there is no big delay- 3 partition volumes per drive, full tree sorting as if they were folders on the machine I am working on. A file manager like Nautilus can do this???

No idea about pysdm, presumably a python powered abortion designed to do simple tasks in the least efficient manner possible.A "KDE distro" is just a "distro" with KDE slapped on it, same distro with Gnome or XFCE or $WM of choice or no DE at all should be no different when it comes to connecting to it remotely.Up to you really. Linux is all about choice :)
For connection methods, you could use Samba, ssh or NFS (or probably some others but they're the most common).

If you always want them mounted at boot, use fstab.

If I was doing what I think you want, I'd install sshfs, make a dir in my home folder (and subdirs) to be the mountpoints then mount the remote filesystems thusly:
You can put the sshfs lines into a script so a single command mounts them all at once and you can run it at will as an easy and selective alternative to the fstab way (also they are owned by your user, so no fiddling with mount options in fstab to make them writable).

You may also want to rtfm ('man sshfs') as there are a few options and some info you may find useful.

!!!
 

I am trying that out ASAP. It sounds to me like I can save my little scrip and empty directories, then copy the whole shebang to the various laptops I use to access my home server, and as long as none of the other machines are accessing it (???) I can pick up right where I left off last...? Right now I'm remote desktop into the server, and I set up a bit of file sorting, with the whole GUI delay, and then log out or close the lid (sleep) the laptop, to resume later.

I'm so new, this will be my "first" script. I'm going to google how to do it (I've been editing, what little is needed, my ssh_config file, and still in the mindset that I need to somehow do more; 15 years of M$atan, will do that to a soul). Where might be the best way to learn quickly how to make a script? If I do it once I'll be off and running...
Thank you tons.

:D

Ok I'm learning about how to do this...
Looks like that sample script is a format to -
1) make directories on the client (if they are not already there)
2) connect via sshfs to the host/server and mount on the client the partitions as identified on the host/server.

what is the best way to identifying the partitions in a script (especially if the sd** changes, due to various drives being either plugged in or, say a USB drive): UUID=***** or dev/sd**, or both?
(I.E. I have a possible fstab setup, just to get something working, here is a sample line, edited for general format, that looks mostly like this...)
Thank you so much for the help so far! This is exactly what I've been looking for and to do. I can't believe how cool Linux is- the more sense it makes!!!