[K12OSN] LTSP 5/code to bypass encryption of X

Jim Kronebusch jim at winonacotter.org
Wed Jun 20 14:31:26 UTC 2007


Hello all,  I met with Gideon Romm at our North Central Linux Symposium.  He has been
working on modifications to the code for ldm to allow the bypass of X being encrypted
over ssh.  He has also added functionality to be able to use autologin.  You can
download the modified ldm from here:

http://codebrowse.launchpad.net/~gideon/ltsp/gadi-ldm-mods-ltsp/download/gadi%40ltsp.org-20070521205254-ek710bofdpdtlwlz/x_Matt_Zimmerman_%3Cmatt.zimmerman%40canonical.com%3E_Tue_Jun__7_19%3A59%3A49_2005_32192.0/ldm

Replace your current "/opt/ltsp/i386/usr/sbin/ldm" with the new file (you may want to
backup your current ldm just to be safe).  The in "/opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf" add the
following line:

LDM_DIRECTX=True

You will now be able to run without X being encrypted, which in theory should allow LTSP
5 to run at the same speed as LTSP 4.2.  Bootup times and logout times will still be
slower, but once booted things should zoom along.  So far my tests show that this works
awesome!  I am still waiting for my new clients to really give this a go.

If you would like to use autologin features you simply need to add the following line to
lts.conf:

LDM_USERNAME=hostname

Apparently this lets you use the same user=workstation method that worked in LTSP 4.2. 
You will still need to setup ssh keys OR create the same password for each user and
specify LDM_PASSWORD="mypassword" (in lts.conf).  You also need to specify workstation
names in dhcpd.conf so that workstations do not all have the same hostname (I am not
sure if this is able to be done with the /etc/hosts file as well).

Anyhow this hacked ldm should allow LTSP 5 to finally be usable in larger installations
instead of hanging on to LTSP 4.2.  Also I guess that Scott Balneaves has rewritten some
of the python startup files in C, which should clear up some boot time problems in the
next Gutsy release.

Jim Kronebusch
Cotter Tech Department
453-5188


-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by the Cotter Technology 
Department, and is believed to be clean.




More information about the K12OSN mailing list