Instructions for installing and running Xwin32:
Our Dept. has purchased a 25-user floating network license for X-Win32.
This software for Microsoft Windows PC's allows PC users to emulate
X-windows in order to run *any* Solaris/UNIX application on a remote Sun
workstation while viewing/working within a window on the Windows PC
desktop, even from home (though the delay from home is substantial
enough that I would not recommend running the entire CDE desktop from
home).
INSTALLING F-SECURE 5.2 SSH CLIENT
X-ADMIN32 SESSION AUTOINSTALLER FOR WINDOWS 2000/XP
USING THE CDE MAIL TOOL WTIH X-WIN32
USING XDMCP WITH X-WIN32 in the Department
INSTALLING X-WIN32 6.1FLOAT:
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1. Download the installation file from http://www.starnet.com/support/upgrade.asp
using a license key provided by Keith (or from your current
installation, if you are already running an older version).
2. Select the "Custom" installation option, and check all of
the
available boxes for items to install.
INSTALLING F-SECURE 5.2 SSH CLIENT:
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1. Insert the CD.
If AutoPlay is enabled, the installation splash screen will appear.
If not, simply double-click "My Computer", then double-click
the CD icon
to launch the installer interface.
2. Click "Other Products."
3. Click "Install F-Secure SSH" (NOT the "demo" version).
4. Proceed with the default installation, entering the F-Secure license
keycode when prompted.
5. Click "Finish" to reboot your PC when prompted.
RUNNING X-CONFIG:
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Click "Start", "All Programs", "X-Win32 6.1", "X-Config."
Basic Set-up:
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1. Click the "Window" tab and select "Single" window
mode (SWM). (This
is necessary if you plan to run CDE via the "Xsession" command.)
I also
recommend setting "Backing Store" to "Always On" to
improve performance
when graphics windows overlap.
2. Consider unchecking "Full Screen" on the "Windows"
tab, and manually
entering the size of the X-Window, using a lower resolution than your
current PC desktop (e.g. if your desktop is 1024x768, then set "width"
=
1020 and "height" = 704; if your desktop is 1280x1024, then
1276x972 is
a good size), so that you will still be able to see the Windows task bar
when X-Win32 is running. (You will be able to change this at any time,
in order to customize the window size to your liking, so don't sweat
it.)
3. On the "Display" tab, choose "(ip smart)".
4. On the "Input" tab, uncheck "Left ALT to X," but
leave "Right ALT to
X" selected. This way, the left ALT key is for Windows, while the
Right
ALT key is for UNIX.
5. Go to the "Security" tab of X-Config, and tick all of the
boxes,
including the "Access Control" and "Use XAuth" boxes,
then also add your
preferred Sun host names (e.g. silver.bst.rochester.edu) to the X-host
list, along with the local host address (127.0.0.1) for ssh connections.
6. Unchecking the "Display splash screen on start up" box on
the "Other"
tab of X-Config (recommended) will allow you to get going without that
few second delay while the X-Win32 splash screen covers up the center
of
your screen (right where you need to type your password).
7. Do not tick the "Last session terminate" box on the "Other"
tab of
X-Config. Although this would conveniently cause X-Win32 to close
automatically when you quite your last open session, it seems to
preclude Xsession (CDE desktop) from starting up as well.
8. Checking the "Panning" option on the "Other" tab
will enable you to
pull in windows drawn partly off the screen.
9. Unchecking the "GLX Buffering" option on the "Other"
tab allows your
PC graphics card drivers to interpret OpenGL graphics calls.
Adding your first session:
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1. Click the "Sessions" tab, click "Add," and then
select either the
"StarNetSSH" Connection Method (to connect from home) or "XDMCP"
(to
connect from within the Department).
(The "Wizard" is not recommended, given that the OpenWindows
commands it
helps you with are deprecated, by the way.)
2. Enter a session name. This can be whatever you want to call this
session. E.g. "Terminal", "Mail", "Calendar",
"File Manager",
"Process Manager", "CDE", etc.
3. Enter the host name or IP address of the Sun workstation you wish
to
work on remotely (e.g. "silver.bst.rochester.edu").
4. Type your Solaris username in the "login" box (e.g. "peterson").
5. Enter the UNIX command to be run (e.g. "dtterm", "dtcm",
"dtfile",
"sdtprocess", etc.). This can be essentially any command that
you could
normally type at the UNIX prompt. "Xession" is actually the
command
that initates the CDE (Common Desktop Environment) that you are probably
used to at work, from which everything else can be done; however, I warn
you that running the full CDE from home is rather slow (even with
RoadRunner), and quite unnecessary. Also, some commands, such as
"Splus" are better executed from a terminal window and not as
their own
session; unlike "Xsession", "dtterm" opens a terminal
window very
quickly, and from this terminal window you can type any other command,
such as "sas", without needing all of CDE's overhead. (By the
way, the
absolute slowest application I've found yet is opening Splus's
"help.start()" java-based help system; while this does work
from home, I
prefer not to use it, given how slow it runs via ssh connections.)
6. Do NOT enter your password, for security reasons! If you leave this
field blank, you will be prompted for it to connect (as recommended).
And when you are prompted, please do NOT ever click "Save
password/passphrase."
7. Click the "Enable Compresson" box for SSH flags to enable
on-the-fly
ssh compression for a mild performance boost.
8. Select the window mode. Use "switch to single" for "Xsession"
or
XDMCP sessions (so that CDE will manage all of your Solaris windows),
but use "switch to multiple" for just about any other UNIX command
(so
that Microsoft Windows will best manage your session windows on your PC
desktop for you).
9. If and only if you want this particular session to be automatically
launched whenever you open X-Win32, then tick the "Auto Start"
box in
the SSH session flags area. This is only really useful if you *always*
want to launch "dtterm" (or "Xsession"), e.g.
10. Click "Save" to save this session configuration.
11. If you would like a convenient desktop icon that you can simply
double-click from now on to launch a given session, then (with the
session highlighted) click "Shortcut."
In a second, the shortcut should appear on your desktop.
12. To start a given session from within X-Config, highlight it and
click "Launch."
Adding additional sessions:
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The easiest & quickest way to add additional sessions is to select
one
that you've already created and click "Edit" (rather than "Add").
Then
simply change the session name, UNIX command, and anything else you
wish, and click "Save." Using X-Config, this actually creates
a new
session, leaving the one you edited intact as well; using X-Admin32,
however, this shortcut doesn't seem to work the same way.
X-ADMIN32 SESSION AUTOINSTALLER FOR WINDOWS
2000/XP: ___________________________________________________
If, after installing X-Win32, you download and double-click the Xwin32-sessions-silver-Win2000XP.reg
file on your Windows 2000/XP PC, it will edit your registry to
automatically create a bunch of useful X-Win32 sessions!
(This will not work on some older home operating systems, such as
Windows 98SE; but it shouldn't cause any harm if you try it, either.)
The Sun workstation "silver" was used for all of the ssh sessions
in
this *reg file. To connect to a different host, you can simply use
X-config, highlight each session name (one at a time), click "Edit",
change the name to your Sun workstation, and "Save" the edited
session.
Or you can just edit the *.reg file *before* double-clicking it: using
any text editor, simply change all instances of "silver" to
the name of
your machine.
(It's OK if you double-click the *.reg file more than once, or after
creating your own custom sessions; it will just update your list of
sessions to include any new ones.)
This *.reg file was created using X-Admin32, a utility you can play
with, yourself, provided you chose the "Custom" installation
option for
X-Win32 and ticked all of the boxes for items not included in the
typical X-Win32 installation. In particular, you can create your own
*.reg file by using X-Admin32 rather than X-Config to create custom
sessions. The advantage of this is that if you ever need to reinstall
X-Win32, you'll have a quick way to reconstruct all of your sessions.
Click here to download a preconfigured *.reg file with helpful sessions already added!
LAUNCHING X-WIN32 SESSIONS:
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1. If you created a desktop shortcut, simply double-click it! Assuming
you have internet access, you will be prompted for your UNIX password,
and you will be connected once you enter it. That's it.
2. If you did not create a shortcut, you can run "X-Win32."
Its icon
should then appear on the lower right hand side of your screen, along
with those of other running programs. If I recall correctly, you can
left- or right-click on it and select a session to run. Or I think you
can right click on the session window if it appears on your desktop.
TROUBLE-SHOOTING:
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1. If when you try to run an X-Win32 session, you get an error stating
something like "the fssh32.dll file cannot be found" and that
"you
should try reinstalling the program," INSTEAD try this:
Copy fssh32.dll from the C:\Program Files\F-Secure\Ssh directory to
the C:\Program Files\StarNet\X-Win32 5.4 directory.
Now try running the X-Win32 session again. Hopefully, it will work
from now on! (This fix has seemed to be necessary on Windows 2000/XP
but not on Windows 98(SE) in my limited experience. On the other hand,
reinstalling F-Secure, as suggested, did NOT solve the problem.)
2. If your session doesn't connect, for no apparent reason, of if you
get errors with "stdio", "connection refused", some
problem with a
"MAGIC-COOKIE", etc. then try this:
Go to the "Security" tab of X-Config, and tick all of the boxes,
including the "Access Control" and "Use XAuth" boxes,
then also add your
preferred Sun host names to the X-host list, along with the local host
address (127.0.0.1) for ssh connections. Apply, save, and exit
X-Config; then try again.
You might now see a dialog box stating that an unknown client is trying
to connect; if you just initiated a session, then click "OK"
to "Accept
It" (1-4 times). Hopefully, your session will now start for you.
3. Also keep in mind that the floating license does limit how many
simultaneous users can connect to any group of workstations. Thus,
always close X-Win32 when you are done so that others can gain access.
Not only are we limited to 25 total simultaneous users, but our current
network configuration is such that as few as 5 simultaneous users can
access particular groups of workstations. I believe Keith might have
different installation CD's, with different floating license codes and
passwords for different sets of computers, so make sure you install the
right one for your Sun workstation.
USING THE CDE MAIL TOOL WTIH X-WIN32:
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The UNIX command to properly start the CDE mail tool is:
dtmail -f /var/mail/$user
I have had difficulty with not being able to click the "To:"
and "Cc:"
buttons (to access my aliases) when composing a message,
unfortunately...
Microsoft Word/Excel/etc. attachments can be read by double-clicking
them to (slowly) open the PC File Viewer in separate window, or by
dragging the attachment onto the Star Office icon at the left end of the
CDE tool bar, if you are running the CDE desktop, as usual. Still, esp.
with larger files, the best way to view Microsoft documents is with
genuine Microsoft Office; thus, (a) forwarding the message to your home
e-mail account or (b) saving the attachment and then using the SSH file
transfer client to open it (or copy it to your PC's local hard drive)
works best, assuming you have Word/Excel/whatever installed on your home
PC (or laptop).
Note: Unfortunately, many hotels still do not permit even secure shell
ssh connections. So if you're at such a hotel with your laptop, then
you will be out of luck. In other words, if you were unable to ssh to
work and use pine from certain hotels before, then X-Win32 will not save
you. Complain to the hotel manager, and perhaps they'll eventually
enable ssh...
(Christine is also looking into ways for you to get your work e-mail
using Outlook on your PC. And, of course, you could always forward your
mail to your URMC account or some other web-based e-mail service like
hotmail, since hotels do provide web access...)
RUNNING CDE WITH X-WIN32:
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It's worth noting that running "Xsession" to run your entire
CDE
Solaris desktop from home takes nearly 5 full minutes to start up, even
using RoadRunner; and I wouldn't be surprised if it takes at least
a half hour using a 56K modem connection...
Simply opening a terminal window or the mail term, however, takes only
a few seconds on RoadRunner, by comparison. I hope this helps explain
why I don't think it's a great idea to run all
of CDE from home unless you really need it for some reason. For
example, if you start X-Win32 with just "dtterm", you can launch
other
windows by just typing commands into this terminal window (or you can
run multiple X-Win32 sessions, if you like, each launching different
applications).
If you are using X-Win32 at work, however, things are drastically
different, since your upload speeds are 100Mbps (compared with
28-384Kbps from home). Indeed, if you use the XDMCP protocol (which is
noticeably faster than ssh, but will never work from home), there is
absolutely no perceptable delay at all; it feels almost exactly like
you're sitting at the Sun workstation.
USING XDMCP WITH X-WIN32 in the Department:
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There are 3 ways you might want to use XDMCP: (1) Query, (2) Multicast,
and (3) Broadcast. Broadcast will show you a long list of all machines
on the local network, including some not even in our Department, and you
can choose which one you want to try to connect to. With Multicast, you
define your own small list of machines you want to choose from. And
Query is useful if you always connect to the same Sun machine. With any
of these messages, you will see the usual Sun login screen, just as if
you were sitting at a Sun workstation, so you just enter your login and
password to load CDE as usual.
Using X-Config's "Session" tab, the "Wizard" actually
works fine for
setting up XCMCP sessions. Alternatively, you can use the "Add"
button,
select "XDMCP", type a session name, change the "Default"
window mode to
"Switch to single", and choose one the 3 above-mentioned connection
methods, typing the Sun host names (or IP addresses) where appropriate.
