Stefan
If you can configure your thin-client to boot off of USB ...
- create a 1 or 2 GB USB stick configured to auto-boot into linux and some locked down user account
- create the network configuration setup the thin-client will use
- start x2goclient
- create a new "session"
- pre-configure the USB x2goclient with 1 Session, your various 'settings/preferences' like desktop-type, local printing, connection speed etc
- don't enter any user ID into the USB x2goclient
- exit the x2go client
- configure x2goclient to be auto-run at boot
- pre-configure the USB Linux wireless/ethernet info
Shutdown the USB linux and the USB should contain a template you can make copies of.
Hand out USB's to students at Registration or leave in the Thin-Clients.
I've talked to some USB manufacturers and if you buy in bulk they will even pre-copy/load your USBs for you and in most cases, imprint the USB with a school mascot/banner etc.
They above becomes sort of like an x2go client kiosk setup.
When the thin-clients boots and network is established the x2go login screen should be presented and they will be able to log into your x2goserver and get a desktop.
I've done this and its quite easy. One other benefit is that if the x2goserver at the school is setup right to provide a public IP (with security) the students could take the USB Sticks home and if they have Internet at home and a PC/laptop/netbook etc that can boot from USB then... the student can boot off their USB stick, login to their school x2go server and continue with their desktop & school work as if they'd never left the school.
First question is "what if the kid loses the USB"...
- anyone finding it would still not have the user ID and password to gain access to the school's x2goserver and the student's desktop.
- also, since 1-2 GB USBs are so cheap now they can just be a "throw-away" expense.
- Security, you can encrypt the USB, there's no user information or documents etc. ever stored on the USB itself, etc.
Just an idea.
by the way for 1GB USB's they are now about $2.95 each with Free Logo, 100 Piece Minimum.
Brian
On 03/07/2012 11:29 AM, Stefan wrote:
Hi all,
we plan to set up an x2go-server in a school, where people should have access to with laptops throught wlan.
The laptops will have dual-boot systems an one of them should be a minimal setup with x2goclient (thinclient-image) and wlan access. It would be nice doing usb-automounting in the image - like the ltsp-thinclient environment does.
They should behave thin-client like - only that they can't boot through pxe because of wlan. (For the desktops we still use ltsp - because of features like local apps and automounging ...) So users should not have to open a desktop-environment, starting x2goclient and mount local devices manualy.
Are there any common approaches?
Is automounting working in the tce of x2go?
Thanks for your ideas.
stefan
Am Thursday 08 March 2012 schrieb brian mullan:
Stefan
If you can configure your thin-client to boot off of USB ...
- create a 1 or 2 GB USB stick configured to auto-boot into linux and some locked down user account
Hi Brian,
thanks for your Ideas. My Ideas go in a very similar direction. At the moment I see two main aproaches: either using live-helper creating live-images for usb-stick (or in our case for the harddisk) or using voyage-linux (a debian distro for embedded systems). Both have the advantage, that they are readonly images - in the case of voyage together with the possibility to change things on the fly - without building the whole root.
Hand out USB's to students at Registration or leave in the Thin-Clients.
We will prefer internal devices - because the machines are thin-clients per default. Additionally we could make some usb-sticks for the brought-in computers.
But the main question was concerning the possibility to automount usb-sticks. I'd like to achieve that a usb-disk inserting in the client is accessible to the x2go-session.
So of course, I could advice the users to mount usb-sticks locally and than making the /media/ directory available to x2go via the sshfs. But this is not very convenient.
The other possibility is to make usb-automount via udev - but with the problem that usb-devices are not cleanly unmounted. The way ltsp works in this point is, to automount devices as soon as the sshfs accesses the specific directory. And unmounting them automatically when there is no access anymore. But that seems to difficult to implementate for me.
Maybe the easiest way is indeed to set up an minimal grafical environment with the two functions: mounting and unmounting usb-devices and connecting to wlan. Maybe additionally an local browser .... newer knows.
How is this solved in the tce?
Brian
On 03/07/2012 11:29 AM, Stefan wrote:
Hi all,
we plan to set up an x2go-server in a school, where people should have access to with laptops throught wlan.
The laptops will have dual-boot systems an one of them should be a minimal setup with x2goclient (thinclient-image) and wlan access. It would be nice doing usb-automounting in the image - like the ltsp-thinclient environment does.
They should behave thin-client like - only that they can't boot through pxe because of wlan. (For the desktops we still use ltsp - because of features like local apps and automounging ...) So users should not have to open a desktop-environment, starting x2goclient and mount local devices manualy.
Are there any common approaches?
Is automounting working in the tce of x2go?
Thanks for your ideas.
stefan
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brian mullan -
Stefan