[X2go-Dev] X2go real life usage

[Mike Gabriel]

Hi Martin,

On Do 07 Jul 2011 12:34:55 CEST Martin Oehler wrote:

> after an update to the current set of packages there are some
> points that should be (at least in my opinion) discussed.

Thanks for testing the packages. Your feedback on our work on X2go  
will sure be valuable.

@list: note that Martin is one of the guys who are responsible for  
regular releases and maintenance of Knoppix ;-)

> 1) Session Administration
>
> At the moment, I can't see a user-friendly replacement of x2go-
> sessionadministration. This tool is crucial for network usage
> of x2go since your local administrator needs to be able to reset
> sessions, connect to an users session and all that stuff.

It is possible to handle sessions via the command line, but that, of  
course, is not an option.

> Would the old code compiled against the qt3-libs in Debian Squeeze
> lead to a working solution?
>
> Is there another tool that I wasn't able to find? x2godesktop-
> sharing is of course not useable if the user session did freeze.

There is a new tool that is at most in alpha-state yet (@Alex: correct  
me if that has changed recently):
http://wiki.x2go.org/x2goadmincenter

Heinz has presented that tool on the Debian Edu Zweibrücken meeting in  
Feb 2011, you may remember that.

> Was is the recommended way of stopping an users session (please
> read topic two before answering, it's not that easy)?
It should be ok:

   - to logout from the desktop (desktop mode)
   - to close a window (rootless mode)
   - to issue the command x2goterminate-session on a console from within the
     session
   - or from a terminal outside the session
   - I am not sure if in X2go clusters it is also possible to terminate a
     session from another host in the cluster (I do not think so)

> 2) Database handling
>
> How is the database cleanup of the sqlite3 database
>
>   /var/lib/x2go/x2go_sessions
>
> supposed to work? From my point of view this database is constantly
> growing. I can't see that old sessions are cleaned up.
>
> If a user connects to a LXDE of Debian Squeeze and performs a logout
> via the menu, his session is still listed inside the database. So
> this database is constantly growing what is definitely not what one
> wants.

I have also observed that but did not bother looking at it. It is  
definitely a bug. A side effect of this is that the port is rising to  
heaven (I have a server that has been up for quite a while and my  
display number is :332, it started off at :50.

> Another problem with this are hanging or crashed sessions. The database
> gets very quickly inconsistent with the real system state. The user
> sees a lot of session that are marked active at login but the processes
> belonging to these sessions do not exist anymore. I found manually
> cleaning up the database worked but this isn't comfortable at all
> (i.e. not possible to do for everyone).
>
> x2gocleansession is running but doesn't seem to be able to clean up
> the database (permissions are correct, new sessions are inserted).

This should also be addressed before Baikal. I suppose that most  
people with prefer sqlite for its simpleness. So we should make sure  
that the X2go sqlite db backend works. Feel free to contribute with  
patches etc.

> 3) Smartcard usage
>
> This might be a separate topic which leads to a bug, but somehow the
> timing between x2go und the scdaemon messed up. If a user does a
> session suspend via smartcard and puts his card in again after the
> card is available he gets an "invalid card" error message. If one
> is a bit more patient and waits for 5-6 seconds it works again.
>
> Did someone else experience this?
>
> I can live with this at the moment.

I cannot say anything about the smartcard stuff. I haven been working  
on the X2go TCE (thin client env) lately, but I virtually did not  
touch the smartcard part, as I do not have a device to test that with.

> At the moment I'm really struggling to get to the point where x2go
> was in terms of usability at "qt3-times" (I know they are gone).

Whatever you have to contribute, please do so. We could check with  
Heinz to even give you access on certain projects in X2go Git.

Thanks+Greets,
Mike


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