[K12OSN] OT - Web based appliance

[Les Mikesell]

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