[K12OSN] OT - Web based appliance
Les Mikesell
les at futuresource.com
Mon Apr 30 23:50:13 UTC 2007
rmcdaniel at indata.us wrote:
> This actually presents all of the applications running on any server, as
> a web based application. I would like to put a thin client on my
> teacher's desk but I have been unable to do that due to our Student
> Management System, STI. With something like this I can serve it up as
> a web based application and access it with just a web browser.
If you are on the LAN or performance isn't a big issue you should be
able to do this with the applet version of vnc. First you would set up
a login on the server to act the way you want (probably one of the
lightweight window mangers and a kiosk-like menu). Then you set up a
web page that downloads the applet and connects back. I think the
standalone version of vncserver will do this - and you could use it for
testing. For actual use you'd probably want the xinetd-started vnc
sessions so you'd need a separate web page to download the applet.
To test the concept, use something like:
vncserver :16
from a test account, give it a password, then connect from a browser
using http://server_name:5816
I think the default window manager will be twm, so don't expect much at
this point - just type the name of some application you want to try to
see if the performance is reasonable. If you think it could work, then
we can figure out a way to get the applet downloaded from a web page
without needing vncserver. Then it is a just a matter of setting up a
login to work the way you want - or perhaps giving them the default
login that you would get with a standalone vnc connection.
Don't forget to run
vncserver -kill :16
from the same account after you are done testing. Vncserver has an
assortment of options you might want to test that will affect the screen
size and depth, but for real use you'll want to convert them over to the
vnc invocations from xinetd so you get fresh logins for each connection.
The reason for testing with vncserver is that it has the embedded applet
downloader listening on port 5800 + display number so you can use it
without a vnc viewer on the client. If it works, there are other ways
you can download that applet.
--
Les Mikesell
les at futuresource.com
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