Citrix equivalent for Linux?

[Red Squirrel]

Is there such a thing as a Citrix equivalent for Linux? How about just plain terminal services?

I'm not talking about VNC but an actual terminal services session, where multiple users can be on same Linux system and access the GUI. Something that works with the citrix/rdp client would be even better but if it has its own client, would work as well.

 

[Nothinman]

That is VNC. You can have as many VNC sessions as the box can handle. Although the VNC protocol isn't terribly secure and it's more bandwidth hungry than ICA/RDP but if you wrap it in SSH it gets a little bit better.

 

[Red Squirrel]

By session I meant users logged in the same box, with their own environment. So like user1 hits the box, gets a login screen (regardless of the state of the physical terminal) logs in, then user2 hits the box, gets his own login screen, and so on. So basically what I want is RDP but for Linux (as in RDP server, not client, I know Linux has a client to RDP to windows boxes)

Basically I want to give people access to my VMware server through a Linux equivalent of RDP. They can log in, then open the console and go at it at the same time without interfering with each other. (well different VMs, at least)

 

[Nothinman]

VNC will do that, you can start as many VNC sessions under as many username's as you'd like.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah but they all display the same console (whatever is on the monitor) unless it has an option to do TS style logon under Linux that I don't know about.

 

[Nothinman]

This is pretty ironic since most people setup VNC only to realize that on unix systems it doesn't show the console X session by default and then they have to hunt around for things like x11vnc to make that happen.

VNC does exactly what you want, by default...

 

[Red Squirrel]

hmm good to know, thats rather interesting, I'll have to mess around with that.

 

[Netopia]

I'd check out NX. It's SOOO much faster than VNC, you can run it encrypted on port 22 (SSH), it's much more configurable... it's just WAY better in almost every way. The only way that VNC beats out NX is that you can use a web browser to log in with VNC, and I don't believe that there's anything like that for NX.

I support of what Nothinman was saying to you above... neither VNC nor NX require you to even have X running on the local console to use them. I've got a number of machines that just boot to the command line for log in since they are virtually NEVER used by anyone sitting directly at them. But when I crank up a VNC/NX session, it loads the GUI for those logins for the remote client, but the console at the actual machine stays black screen.

Here's something that you can do with *nix and VNC/NX that I don't believe you can do with TS.... If you start a session, and then start another session as the same user, you get a brand new desktop that (almost) doesn't interact with the first. The reason I say "almost" is that if you create a desktop item in one session, it shows up on the desktops of all sessions for the same logged in user. You could do this as many times as you wanted, using the same user account, as your machine's resources would permit. There's no reason to do this though, I was just trying to point out how in *nix, the logins are even MORE separated from the console and even each other than they are on TS.

Joe

 

[Robor]

Good info... Thanks Nothinman & Netopia.

 

[Red Squirrel]

cool I'll definatly look at NX. I was trying to get VNC going with no luck.

 

[Nothinman]

I've always avoided looking at NX since it's non-free and thus not included in Debian.

 

[Red Squirrel]

yeah just realized that, I rather something free, so I'll just keep trying to get VNC to work.

 

[Netopia]

What do you mean it's not free? It's absolutely free for Linux! It's just not free (the server part) for Windows or Mac. The clients are all free.

How to install FREE-NX in Debian:
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/freenx.htm

BTW... I've got it currently running on FC4 (several machines), FC7, PCLinuxOS2007 and Debian. Never paid a penny, didn't have to... IT'S FREE!

Joe

 

[Nothinman]

I wasn't speaking monetarily.

 

[Netopia]

Ah.... you meant FOSS? Well... I guess I'm less philosophical on some things, especially when they are free monetarily and work better.

But I appreciate your stance, and Richard Stallman would be proud of you!

Joe

 

[Nothinman]

To be honest I just usually go the path of least resistance and if it's not packaged for Debian then I've got to put effort into building and installing it which I hate doing. So even though I do prefer free software overall for many reasons one of them is pure laziness. =)

 

[Netopia]

At some juncture, you should at least give NX a shot on one machine. I think you may be floored by the performance difference. I've used VNC extensively for years on PC/Mac/Linux for several year, and still do with some, but after seeing the difference with NX, I just converted all my Linux boxes to it.

Joe

 

[Nothinman]

I know VNC is bandwidth hungry but I use it so rarely that I don't really care. In fact the only reason I have it installed on this machine is so that I can remote control an OS X machine and I don't believe there's a non-VNC Apple Remote Desktop client.

 

[Netopia]

Not a free one, anyway. Free as in FOSS and monetary!

Joe

 

[Red Squirrel]

Anyone know if FreeNX is in Yum repositories, and the name of it? I'll give this a try.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ok back to VNC, which version of the VNC client should work with the Linux VNC server? 4.1.2 seems to be the latest free version but can't seem to connect with it. It appears I got it working server side, but don't know for sure. Not sure which port so just been trying all open ports. I have a bad feeling I need to use a pay for version, so this wont work out.

 

[Netopia]

NO... don't pay! There are too many options, including VNC to pay.

One thing you may be forgetting about is the original question and its implications. Since lots of people can log onto one account (if someone wanted that), and these log ins don't directly interact, there has to be a way to control things. This is done with screen. Screen 0 (zero) is at the console. Normally, if you start the Linux VNC server, it will tell you that it has been started and what screen it is on. Normally (there are other sessions running or you manually specify) it will be screen 1.

SO... in your VNC client (make NO difference what 'brand' of client, so long as its VNC) you would put in either:

machine-name:1
or
IP_address:1 (e.g. 192.168.0.50:1)

From a web browser, it would be the default browser port (5800) with the screen replacing the last digit(s)

http://machine-name:5801
or
http://IP_address:5801 (e.g. http://192.168.0.50:5801)

VNC on *nix is a very different animal than on Windows, and it takes a bit to get your head around it. BTW, on OS-X, you just seem to connect to the console desktop, just like Windows... or at least that's been my experience thus far.

Joe

 

[BurnItDwn]

X forwarding will work and use less bandwith an less resources on your server ... but it takes a bit more setup to get started ....

 

[Nothinman]

X forwarding will work and use less bandwith an less resources on your server ... but it takes a bit more setup to get started ....

And it also requires an X server on the client side which is usually a PITA for most users.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah just got it working, at least locally. I kinda like this, pretty cool. Can even set it up to auto launch an app so if I want to give access to only one app, or several apps I can set it up that way (did not play with that part yet).

I'm having issues setting this up as a ssh tunnel though, is that a known issue?

I setted up the tunnel, but when I connect I get "the connection closed unexpectedly, do you wish to attempt to reconnect to 127.0.0.1:5902?" I mapped port 5802 properly as a tunnel. I can telnet to it through the tunnel. Is it that its too slow maybe?