(r9) UserNxClientInstallation < CmsTier3

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---+!! Working with graphical applications with the NX client application

%TOC%

---++ Introduction

The NX server/client suite enables you to very efficiently work over the network with graphical applications. For our cluster, it will open a full KDE desktop in a window on your machine. You can copy and paste across windows, and you'll see that it almost feels as working locally. Also, sessions can survive disconnections and crashes, and you can reconnect to the same session with all the windows intact.

---++ Installation of nxclient on your client machine

   1. The nxclient software is available for free from http://www.nomachine.com/. Go to the download page and pick the package that best matches your local machine.
   1. Install the package (usually requiring you to be root on your machine). Example for the installation on a SL5 system<pre>
rpm -ivh nxclient-3.3.0-6.x86_64.rpm
</pre>
   1. Launch the nxclient application (as your user! not as root). The =-wizard= argument causes nxclient to bring up a dialog where new sessions can be defined<pre>
nxclient -wizard
</pre>
   1. At the GUI that is presented to you, define the profile for a session. <br>   * nx-docu0.png: <br /> <img src="%ATTACHURLPATH%/nx-docu0.png" alt="nx-docu0.png" width="492" height="350" />

   1. In the following dialog you are asked to enter the connection parameters. In the _desktop_ section you can either define whether you want to get a full desktop (currently only KDE) or just a specific application. It is best to just start a remote graphical _KDE konsole_ on the server (multiple full KDE desktop sessions to multiple machines can come in conflict, since for our UIs all will use the same identical shared home directory). Choose *Custom* and use the *Settings* button to specify nx to start up =/usr/bin/konsole= on connection.  <br><img src="%ATTACHURLPATH%/nx-docu01.png" alt="nx-docu01.png" width="492" height="350" />  <img src="%ATTACHURLPATH%/nx-docu02.png" alt="nx-docu02.png" width="330" height="322" />
   1. The next dialog will present to you to you the standard nx client login screen. Before you log in, you still must do some more configuration, so use the configure button. <br /><img src="%ATTACHURLPATH%/nx-docu1.jpg" alt="nx-docu1.jpg" width="322" height="192" />  <img src="%ATTACHURLPATH%/nx-docu04.png" alt="nx-docu04.png" width="364" height="422" />
   1. Now you need to use the *Key...* button in the configuration window (see above), and add our service's private key to the profile. To get the key, you need to open a normal ssh terminal session to any of our UIs, and get the contents of the key file <pre>
cat /swshare/psit3/etc/NX/client-dsa-key
</pre> Paste the contents including the =BEGIN= and =END PRIVATE KEY= lines into the dialog box. *Note: This key must NOT be given to anyone!* It enables you to connect to the service (you still will need to authenticate with your normal passwd, but the basic connection to the service is allowed based on this key).
   1. Do not forget to save your profile (the configurator should prompt you for it)
   1. When you now try to connect to the service with nxclient, you will get a normal password dialog window.  Put in your normal Tier-3 passwordI, and hit the =login= button.
   1. Enjoy...

---++ Troubleshooting
---+++ Handling keyboard mapping problems

Depending on the keyboard that you use on your local machine you may experience key mapping problems (e.g. cursor keys and ALT key not correctly mapped). This can be fixed by reading out the mappings on your local Linux X session and loading them into the server machine.

   1 Generate a file with the keycode mappings <pre>
mymachine # xmodmap -pke > my-kmap</pre>
   1 Transfer it to the nx server <pre>
mymachine # scp my-kmap feichtinger@t3ui04:</pre>
   1 Load the mappings into the nx server session <pre>
t3ui04 # xmodmap my-kmap</pre>

*NOTE:* It may be that some key definitions are not available on the target server . You will get errors like this
<pre>
xmodmap:  my-kmap:193:  bad keysym name 'XF86TouchpadToggle' in keysym list
</pre>
Just remove the lines which cause problems from this file and try again to load the keymap.

This solution was taken from [[http://daniel-lange.com/archives/45-Fixing-FreeNX-NoMachine-NX-keyboard-glitches-e.g.-ALTGr.html][Daniel Lange's blog]].

-- Main.DerekFeichtinger - 2010-11-05

Attachments

Topic attachments
I	Attachment	History	Action	Size	Date	Who
png	nx-docu0.png	r1	manage	25.8 K	2010-11-29 - 15:21	DerekFeichtinger
png	nx-docu01.png	r1	manage	32.4 K	2010-11-29 - 15:22	DerekFeichtinger
png	nx-docu02.png	r1	manage	16.8 K	2010-11-29 - 15:28	DerekFeichtinger
png	nx-docu04.png	r1	manage	26.3 K	2010-11-29 - 15:39	DerekFeichtinger
jpg	nx-docu1.jpg	r3 r2 r1	manage	13.3 K	2010-11-29 - 15:10	DerekFeichtinger
jpg	nx-docu2.jpg	r3 r2 r1	manage	65.7 K	2010-11-29 - 14:58	DerekFeichtinger

Topic revision: r9 - 2010-11-29 - DerekFeichtinger

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