freenx-team team mailing list archive

[Per Hansen <spamhans@xxxxxxxx>]

Jeremy Wilkins wrote:
> Per Hansen wrote:
>> Which emailclients do you use, it produces silly HTML-Code and bad quotes!
> To whom are you addressing, all or individuals?

Hmm, must be Marcelo since this mail from you looks fine.

> Still, having one huge source package for all is not good form.

I think the cross-depends are only header files. We could just add the
needed header files to the original achive and build a new .orig.tar.gz.
But I don't know I that is the best solution since the "orig"-file in
not original anymore. Perhaps it is better to add the missing files to
the debian-diffs as a patch...


> [...] such as the failure
> of NX to handle the modern xorg.conf file's lack of font entries (this is a
> problem no matter whether Ubuntu Gutsy, Hardy or Debian Lenny as far as I'm
> aware).  A patch should be developed for NX about this problem (bring NX's X
> up to date?), but it is still unresolved.

A patch... ok... but updating NXs X sounds like a lot of work and should
be done by upstream!

> Also, this is somewhat related,
> we may want to look at incorporating NX capabilities directly into X
> instead.  I understand the clean room problems related to porting NX since X
> has different licensing (I think that was the issue anyways), but it is
> possible to write out the specs and have someone else rewrite the code base

I think it is hard to find someone who can and want to do that.

> or build it as a module lib for linking to X (I think that still preserves
> licensing).  Then maybe we can turf NX duplicate libs and get patches
> accepted into Debian/Ubuntu and only have to maintain the connector libs.

A better solution because we can avoid the clean-room, don't reinvent
the whole nx-system and can update to new upstream releases.

> I understand your reluctance for patch submission by email, but I just lack
> familiarity with VC systems in general.  I only just began to become
> familiar with subversion recently.  Bazaar I have very little experience
> with, none of which was productive for me.  In other words, I'm lost when it
> comes to bazaar and I need coaching.  I am willing to learn.

Only because launchpad wants us to use bazaar we are not forced to do
that! We can still use a subversion repository on SF, BerliOS or on my
root-server...

I started to use Subversion several years ago (because I hate CVS),
using it daily and administrating several repositories.

> I doubt it.  My understanding is that opening local loop (127.0.0.1 IP) for
> VNC may be a security problem.  I don't think that it is myself, but that's
> not my call.

Isn't that just a paramater?
x11vnc -localhost
x11vnc -allow 127.0.0.1 -listen localhost
I used that before to tunnel vnc through ssh...
(the same way nx works...)

>> Are there any drawbacks in making them "truly local"?
> 
> The only drawback maybe if you redirect the local 127.0.0.1:[VNC Port] to
> another port on the local machine, which may need testing in load balanced
> servers as well to be certain.  However, as I understand it nxviewer_helper
> doesn't get called until we are in the load balanced server that is already
> selected for you.  If that is correct, only the first drawback applies. 
> Likewise, If they want to redirect the port they are still stuck with
> 127.0.0.1 as the display which still doesn't work anyways for x11vnc.  This
> does not affect NX 2.x sources and prior as they do not have need of x11vnc
> and do not use nxviewer_helper.  There is no security concerns to my
> knowledge as I have tested it and you still need access to the .XAuthority
> in order to access a screen and only root and the same logged in user have
> access to these.
> With my experience, this is the only way that I have been able to get local
> desktop access to work.  Trust me, I have tried every combination.  The only
> caveat thus far is that you need to log in as the same user that is logged
> in currently. Access to the login prompt is still not available.

I'm not sure I understood that correctly...

I think x11vnc will only be used for remote administration and service
on workstations and servers, while balancing will only be used on
application-servers.
If there are only problems if someone tries x11vnc on a balanced server,
this would not be a big problem.


Per