[LightDM] Is lightdm suitable for my thin client project?

[Robert Ancell]

Hi Jonathan,

The "Remote Login" entry in Unity Greeter is access to any of the remote
login sessions that are installed on your machine. There are two that I
know of; lightdm-remote-session-uccsconfigure which requires the UCCS
account and lightdm-remote-session-freerdp which does not. Both are
packaged in Ubuntu. I don't know everything about these systems as they
were developed by another team in Canonical, but I think you should be able
to get the FreeRDP system to do what you want.

In terms of diagnosing what you've done - first look at
/var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log and that will point you to other logs in that
directory showing errors in what has happened. The difficult part to
diagnose is PAM, since the modules generally don't provide easy logging.

--Robert


On 24 July 2013 21:54, Jonathan Adler <jonathan at puppeq.com> wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> Thank you for your reply.
>
> Yes, I've looked at LTSP and asked questions on #ltsp, but my
> understanding is that it requires an Ubuntu LTSP server and I don't think
> that is really what I want.
>
> I have been working on this non-stop and this is what I have so far,
>
> - I start with Ubuntu Mini 13.04 and do a command line install.
>
> - I install the following packages,
> sudo apt-get install
> xserver-xorg
> lightdm
> notify-osd
> light-themes
>
> This is where I am currently.
>
>
> The "Remote Login" feature if I understand correctly requires a UCCS
> account and cannot work independently of that. If that is the case the I'd
> rather not use this feature.
>
> Right now I'm trying to figure out how to start a FreeRDP session when a
> user logs in at the lightdm greeter. I created an xsession at
> /usr/share/xsessions/freerdp-test.desktop with the following contents:
>
> [Desktop Entry]
> Name=FreeRDP Test
> Exec=xfreerdp /v:<IP_ADDRESS>
> Type=Application
>
> But when user "test" logs in the screen goes black for a few seconds and
> then the lightdm greeter reappears. I have no idea how to get this to work.
>
> I have no problem discussing this on the LightDM mailing list and I will
> make my thin-client solution open-source on Github when I have it working
> as I think there is a need for something like this. It is just that I'm
> really tight on time to complete this by the end of this week, so if
> there's any way that you can help me directly I would be very grateful. We
> can discuss compensation if you like.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> -- Jonathan
>
> On 24 Jul 2013, at 11:39, Robert Ancell wrote:
>
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> Interesting project!
>
> Have you seen LTSP [1] - it might be an off the shelf solution to your
> needs.
>
> If not, there are some options you can do with LightDM. You can log into
> remote sessions from LightDM, for example by using FreeRDP [2]. Depending
> on your requirements, it might just be enough to install this and log in
> using the standard Ubuntu greeter (unity-greeter).
>
> If this doesn't fill what you need, the other options with LightDM are:
> - Writing your own remote session module:
>   - Writing PAM configuration that provides the authentication you want
>   - Writing a session that provides the remote access using the protocols
> you want
> - Writing a greeter that has the UI you want
>
> Hope this helps,
> --Robert
>
> p.s. Are you OK continuing this discussion on the LightDM mailing list
> [3]? It would be useful for others interested in similar requirements,
>
> [1] http://www.ltsp.org/
> [2] https://launchpad.net/lightdm-remote-session-freerdp
> [3] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/lightdm
>
>
>
> On 17 July 2013 23:17, Jonathan Adler <jonathan at puppeq.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Robert,
>>
>> I'm working on a project for my father's accountancy firm which is to
>> develop a laptop thin client solution for 5 employees. The reason I've
>> decided to build my own solution is that there are very few commercial
>> laptop thin clients on the market. I have even tried a commercial product
>> to re-purpose a laptop such as IGEL Universal Desktop Converter (UDC), but
>> the lack of essential features (e.g. usb modem support and full laptop
>> hardware support) makes it unsuitable for our purposes.
>>
>> I am considering the HP 655 laptop as it has the most barebones features
>> (on the Ubuntu hardware certified list) I've seen of a laptop and the
>> employees don't need anything fancy. In terms of the requirements/ features
>> I need of the thin client solution they are as follows:
>>
>> - Laptop hardware is fully supported, e.g. graphics, wifi, ethernet,
>> display brightness. I know that Ubuntu has this covered out of the box.
>>
>> - UTMS USB modem support
>>
>> - RDP client, e.g. FreeRDP
>>
>> - VPN client, e.g. L2TP/ IPsec
>>
>> - Printer support
>>
>> - Read-only OS that the user cannot modify
>>
>> - Remote VNC shadowing for employee support
>>
>> - Remote OS image updating
>>
>> - Remote configuration updating
>>
>>
>> Essentially I would like the thin client solution to be as intuitive as
>> possible for users and I envision the following user workflow.
>>
>> 1. When a user powers on the laptop he/she is presented with a login
>> prompt.
>> 2. The user must be connected via either LAN or a UTMS usb modem.
>> 3. When the user logs in, a connectivity check is performed to determine
>> whether LAN or USB modem connected.
>> 4. If a USB modem is detected, the 3G connection is established.
>> 5. Once the laptop has an internet connection (LAN or 3G), a VPN session
>> is established.
>> 6. Finally an RDP session to a terminal server is established.
>>
>> All the user has had to do is power on the laptop, connect an ethernet or
>> USB modem and supply his/ her login details. A printer connected via USB is
>> forwarded to the Windows terminal server and local printing is possible.
>>
>> From an administration perspective I need to be able to VNC to the laptop
>> to help the user with any potential problems relating to the laptop OS
>> itself. I also need to be able to update the OS image if possible or at
>> least update the OS configuration such as VPN settings via the updating of
>> a configuration file. This could be done automatically with the thin client
>> pulling the updated config file from say a private Github repo or similar.
>>
>> I have experience with Ubuntu server although I'm far from an expert, but
>> my Ubuntu desktop experience is limited. Nonetheless, after a lot of
>> googling and a couple of discussions on #Ubuntu someone suggested that
>> Ubuntu mini and lightdm might be a solution to investigate.
>>
>> Any advice and help you can offer is greatly appreciate as I'm unsure of
>> how to actually build my proposed solution using Ubuntu mini and lightdm.
>>
>> I look forward to hearing from you.
>>
>> -- Jonathan
>
>
>
>
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