Re: Ho to enable the gdm chooser as the greeting display
Nils Rennebarth wrote:
> I tried this many times and never was really successful and
understood how
> all works together, please someone give me a push in the right direction.
>
> Here is what I want to accomplish:
>
> The X server starts and displays a list of computers willing to manage a
> display. The user selects one, which might be the local host or
another one,
> and gets the login screen. She logs in, logs out when the session is over
> and the screen with the list of willing computers is shown again.
>
> In short, I want a linux box to do the same what a usual X Terminal
would do
> as well. The chooser should also appear eventually after the user presses
> Ctrl-Alt-Backspace or after the server gets killed in some other way.
>
>
> Nils
Dunno how far along you are, but here is a "from scratch" checklist of
things you have to do to get part of the way there. (Note: security
issues here with using XDMCP..)(NOTE 2: This assumes XFree86 Verson 4.X)
1. CONFIGURE X TO ALLOW COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE NETWORK:
Edit /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc file and remove the "-nolisten TCP"
option. This allows X to "listen" to the needed ports for XDMCP. The
"stock" configuration is to not allow this behavior.
2. CONFIGURE GDM FOR XDMCP:
You can hand-edit the /etc/gdm/gdm.conf file or use the
/usr/bin/gdmconfig program under X as "root" to do these steps. If you
hand-edit the "ConfigAvailable=true" in the gdm.conf [greeter] section,
you will also be able to config/re-config GDM from the greeter menu.
You need to go down to the [xdmcp] section and set "Enable=true" and
"HonorIndirect=true". The "chooser" function is already setup. Next
time you re-start GDM, XDMCP will be available, and your machine will
show up on other networked "chooser" screens.
3. CLEAN UP SERVER SETTINGS IN GDM:
Go to the bottom of gdm.conf and look at all the various server config
options. Remove any "-nolisten TCP" options you find. I am not 100%
sure you need to do this, but I did.
At this point you are ready to test the system to see if XDMCP is
working. You can stop & then start GDM to read in the new config
options in gdm.conf or re-boot. When it re-starts, things will look as
they did before. Do a <ctrl><alt><F1> to get a command line login
prompt and login as root. Type in the following EXACTLY:
X :1 vt8 -indirect <your computer's host name>
In a few seconds you "should" see the chooser screen with all availble
computers listed if all is well. Have fun checking out the logins <g>.
Please take note of the limitations of the "chooser" session. You
cannot login as root (in the stock gdm config) and when you quit a
session it re-cycles to the "chooser" screen. It becomes a bit more
difficult to shutdown when you want.
You now have two xserver sessions running on your machineYou can go to
your original "startup" screen by doing a <ctrl><alt><F7> and you can
switch between the session as you please. The "chooser" session is on
<ctrl><alt><F8>, and you have achieved the basic functionality needed to
do what you want.
If you can live with the limitations of the "chooser" screen you can
stop the original "startup" xserver from starting by COMMENTING OUT the
"0=Standard vt7" line under the [servers] section of gdm.conf. I would
advise against removing it completely, since you just might want to
restore it later! (I did...). In this config, you will boot into a
command-line login prompt with GDM running but no X servers started
(yet). Starting up the "chooser" session is again just like
above...login and type in "X -indirect <your computer's host name>".
You don't have to worry about the ":1" or "vt8" here since there are no
other sessions going, and you can start it as a "user" if you want. In
fact you can type in the hostname of ANY computer on your network that
provides a "chooser" function! You can only use your own hostname IF
you have already started GDM and enabled XDMCP and the "chooser"
function OR have another Display Manager to provide the "chooser".
This is as far as I have gone here. There should be some way to get GDM
to start both servers, but I havn't discovered it yet. The only
suggestion I have to do what you want is to create a small initscript
that has the "X -indirect <hostname>" command it it and insert it into
the SYSV-Init system to start AFTER GDM is started. I havn't tried this.
HTH.
Cheers,
-Don Spoon-
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