[NTLUG:Discuss] KDM and chooser

[Chris Cox]

You peaked my curiosity... so here's what I discovered...

First, let me state that everyone should know that XDMCP is
a pretty big security risk.... the protocol is "buggy"
(someone else's words... not mine).... and in general
pretty easy to work around the need for it.

My conclusion:

Neither the XDM (XFree86) nor the KDM chooser work.

The test:
Using XFree86 3.3.5 (clients ran 3.3.5 and 3.3.1)
Server machine running KDE 2.0.


1. Configure Xaccess on the host that needs to broadcast the chooser.
It's simple enough to make the local xdm user the chooser

* CHOOSER BROADCAST
(NOTE: the KDM chooser is clueless at to what to do with the
BROADCAST parameter!!... syntax error).

2. Start X in indirect mode pointing at the current machine (that
will force the chooser to come up).

X -indirect myhost

The result... the chooser displays all entries EXCEPT for the
local system... and then when you select an entry... it just
locks up (I don't think I ever got the KDE chooser to even
display....).

I noticed some other things during all of my experimenting.

If you just portray XDM login panels via broadcast, that works
ok.  In other words if your Xaccess is:

*

For example, you can do:

X -broadcast

And you'll get the XDM or KDM login panel just fine....

HOWEVER...

KDE is a SINGLE USER CLIENT system!!

...ouch....

What this means is that at least some of the daemons that
start up with a KDE session are TIED to a user.  This prevents
that user from logging in two or more sessions.  You can
log in as two different users though (the sound daemon will
start up and play on the HOST machine though!!).

So...KDE isn't the best idea for an X-terminal farm.

Btw, one of the hosts I used as an X-terminal in this test
was a 486sx-25 (oc'd to 33) with 4M of RAM (believe it or not!).
Peformance with KDE was pretty bad... of course, anything on
this configuration isn't going to be great.  Runs Lynx
well enough though.

Someone needs to fix the chooser programs across the board...

Anyone else got the chooser to behave correctly??
Chris

 
Greg Edwards wrote:
> 
> Tom McDonald wrote:
> >
> > Greg Edwards wrote:
> > >
> > > I'm about to pull my hair out on this one:((
> > >
> > > Has anyone figured out how to get kdm to list remote hosts in the
> > > chooser list?  I've dug through the xdm and related docs as well as the
> 
> snip
> 
> > >
> > > TIA,
> > > --
> > > Greg Edwards
> >
> > Hey Greg,
> >
> > All you have to do is set up the Xaccess file as defined in man xdm....
> > kdm uses the same mechanisms to list remote servers etc.  There is a
> > pretty good example in the man pages for xdm.
> >
> > Tom
> >
> > --
> > Tom McDonald    <tom at compuclaim.com>
> >
> 
> Just an update on this.  I finally cried UNCLE on this one for now.
> I've tried for several days and just can't seem to get it to work.  I'm
> able to do remote logins and run using "-display" so I guess for now
> that'll have to do.  It's not a critical need just a convience.  I've
> got my other systems connected to a KVM so those things that are a real
> pain from my workstation I'll just continue to login there.
> 
> On another matter, several months ago someone posted a URL to a Linux
> version of SCCS.  Can whoever that was post it again?  Installing
> that'll be Tuesdays project.
> 
> --
> Greg Edwards
> New Age Software, Inc.
> http://www.nas-inet.com
> _______________________________________________
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