Re: Xterminal/Multiple Application Servers?

From: Andrew Reilly (andrew_at_gurney.reilly.home)
Date: 09/30/03 

Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 23:24:47 GMT

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 16:37:55 -0500, J'm Sm'th wrote:

> I'm setting up some Xterminals at home, where we'll assume the LAN can
> be trusted [good firewall to the big bad Internet]. I would like most
> applications to be on one machine, while I would like OpenOffice to be
> on a different machine.
>
> Here's my question: is it possible to configure the main login machine
> [running wdm] such that when user on the Xterminal logs in and is
> presented a desktop [running either WindowMaker or Blackbox], they can
> see an icon for OpenOffice [being served from a different machine] that
> they can just click and it will execute?
>
> Am I missing something simple here? The only thing I can think of is
> SSH weirdness, or running chooser with wdm such that a user would have
> to log off of the main machine, then log into the OpenOffice machine to
> run that application.
>
> How can I do this? Thanks!

There are many ways to skin that cat.

The most general, is to write some openoffice application stubs on the
login server that look like:

#!/bin/sh
rsh openofficemachine /usr/local/bin/{sdwrite,foo}

and make sure that both machines have the user home directories mounted in
the same place in the hierarchy, and rhosts is set up for appropriate
friendliness. Or you could use ssh and listed keys, but that will be
slower, and you've already established that your local network is secure
enough for you.

Then you can do the desktop icon thing with those stubs, as though they
were the real thing. You might have to tweak them slightly to make sure
that DISPLAY is set properly, it's been a while since I did this sort of
thing.

The variations on this theme involve basically the same rsh style
incantation, but having whichever desktop/window manager that you're using
know that explicitly. For example, an ancient .twmrc that I have lying
around has lots of menu items like:

menu "Scorpio"
{
"Mathematica" f.exec "rsh scorpio xterm -display $DISPLAY -ls -e math &"
...
}

If your XTerminals are going to be PCs, (or even some commercial
XTerminals) you might want to consider running at least the window manager
locally, on the terminal: that can improve the qualitative sense of speed
substantially. That way *everything* ends up starting with an rsh. 

-- 
Andrew