HOWTO: Install freenx

StifflerStealth · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Posts: 968

Did you try doing:
nxsetup --clean --setup-nomachine-key --install

That will reinstall the nx user and the ssh keys using the default one that comes with the client. I think the keys changed from 1.4.0 and 1.5.0.
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alinv · Guru Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 395 Location: Bucharest

alinv · Guru Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 395 Location: Bucharest

devsk · Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:46 am Post subject:

you just run the nxkeygen program on the server as root. It will create two keys in /usr/NX/home/nx/.ssh and cat the server key to authorized_keys file. You go to that directory and ftp the client key from there to your client machine. Put it anywhere. Invoke nxclient and right next to hostname there is a 'key' button. Click it and import the key you just ftp'ed. Should set it right.

One more important thing: you have to delete and re-add users using nxserver so that the new server key can be concatenated into ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file of the added users. Probably this is the step which most people forget and then the user can't login because the changed key is not present in the authorized_keys.

StifflerStealth · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Posts: 968

sibov · Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 3:45 pm Post subject:

Hi,

I was able to successfully install with the above mentioned PortageOverlay for nxserver-freenx-0.4.4 but
if i type #>

devsk · Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 3:58 pm Post subject:

understood the post wrong. removed.

StifflerStealth · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Posts: 968

Yeah, I get:

Dlareh · Advocate Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 2102

rufflove · Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:15 am Post subject:

Dlareh, have you tried nuking your .nx folders on the server and client boxes, before running 'nxsetup --clean --setup-nomachine-key --install --purge'?

StifflerStealth, thank you very much for the new ebuilds! I'm using the v1.5 Windows client and FreeNX is performing admirably atm. Getting audio support working was dead easy, I just did added esd to my USE flags and did 'emerge --newuse libgnome libao esound'. I presumed it would be much more tricky considering the box has no soundcard and Gentoo was compiled without any audio support...

I tested audio support with the Last.fm player and it definately has an impact on interactivity (I wish that NX would just consume more bandwidth - it never uses more than about a meg on my LAN connection), but its OK for system notifications etc.

... Bye-bye VNC!

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Dlareh · Advocate Joined: 06 Aug 2005 Posts: 2102

m27315 · Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 4:49 pm Post subject: slight interruption

For the sake of us noobs, would someone please explain how to do the overlay process? I have never done it before, and I am unfamiliar with the whole process.

I have freenx running fine on my gentoo box, using an Windows XP client - and it's great! But, I'd like to try the new versions, so I could play with the new resume/suspend features.

Would someone mind posting an informal howto? I'm completely confused after reading this entire thread and examining the various bug pages. Plus, I would like to learn about the general overlay process.

Finally, how will portage deal with this overlay, whenever I perform a world update?

Thanks!

StifflerStealth · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Posts: 968

@rufflove: You are welcome.

@m27315: Download the compressed file containing the overlay and extract it in your portage overlay, usually: /usr/local/poratge. Then you can do a: emerge -uD world to update to the newest versions. Well, all the ebuild are marked as stable except for nxproxy and nxssh. I forgot to change those to stable. :oops:

All the ebuild have had a revision bump, so they should install in a world update. Portage treats files in the overlay just as if they were in the actual portage tree and the overlay overrides any ebuild of the same name and revision that is in the tree.
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gsteff · n00b Joined: 16 Sep 2002 Posts: 4 Location: NC

Diavolo · Apprentice Joined: 09 Jan 2005 Posts: 151

Hi,

I just emerged the ebuilds and nx works fine. Finally I am able to resume a session....
The only thing that disturbs me are the font sizes on KDE via nx. The fonts are shown very small on nx.

Can someone help me?

arjay1 · n00b Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 57 Location: Coin, Spain

gsteff - I get exactly the same problem and have tried everything ever posted (well nearly). My client is on a gentoo box and the server on a debian box but can't see what probs that should cause.

For your info - I thought it must be a problem between my client and server setups. So I went to nomachine's site and created one of their temporary testdrive accounts. This allows you to log onto another server and "testdrive" your client. Guess what - I get exactly the same errors as before when trying to connect to my own server:

I get "Server not install or Remote Access Disabled."

m27315 · Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 3:33 am Post subject:

Q-collective · Advocate Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 2071

Hey, all, I tried the wiki howto, but I get this error:

StifflerStealth · Retired Dev Joined: 03 Jul 2002 Posts: 968

rufflove · Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2005 3:23 pm Post subject:

For anyone else somewhat confused about working with a portage overlay, check out this wiki entry: HOWTO Installing 3rd Party Ebuilds
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arjay1 · n00b Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 57 Location: Coin, Spain

StifflerStealth - hi

From the frequency of your posts, and all the help you give people, you must be one seriously busy guy.

I hesitate to be critical - especially as I am only a newbie but I gotta say that freenx/nxclient/nxserver, what have you, has got to be one of the most difficult pieces of software to install successfully that I have EVER come across.

I have been a DOS/windows man for 20 years and am reasonably useful around computers. I only recently switched to linux, but I have been able to set up most things during trials of three different distros. I currently have a mixed gentoo/debian 3-computer network, plus wireless links for my notebook. I have installed dual screen setups and many other quite complicated things but freenx has got me beat. I have tried every suggestion ever posted - or it seems like that to me - and still nothing works. (Well not quite true - after three solid days of f*rting around, I managed to get nx client to talk to the nomachione testdrive sites but never to my own server.)

Judging by the posts I have looked at over the last few days, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people out there who never got freenx to work. Most of them never even got answers to their posts (which suggests that there are more problems out there than answers). I mean on this site, on the debian forum and linuxquestions sites to name just a few.

I was wondering if I have failed to find a site somewhere that has a howto that actually works. I have tried a dozen - admittedly biased toward debian as that is what my server runs (the client is on gentoo). I don't think there is much point in posting - yet again - all the different error reports I have had. They are much the same as those in this post, for example, and people never got satisfactory solutions to those either. I have now (hopefully) finally got rid of every last vestige of the application on all my computers.

I am still more than willing to give it another go as I desparately need something fast and reliable to run remote desktops on my system.

Therefore, can you point to a decent howto for a relative newbie as to how to install it successfully on a completely "clean" system? Or, how would you suggest people like me (and there are a lot of us out there :lol:

) should go about trying to do a successful install? I reckon you could be our last hope!!

I appreciate all the efforts you make to help people but maybe we need a fresh start here? BTW, in the same vein, this thread has got impossibly long and is hopeless for someone trying to install freenx for the first time. Is it possible to start a new thread with some definitive ideas for going about an install?

Best wishes

RJ

jschellhaass · Guru Joined: 20 Jan 2004 Posts: 341

I will start by saying that I went through some hair pulling and gnashing of teeth when I first tried to upgrade from freenx 4.0 to 4.4.

I found that the overlay works quite well. Looking at my own experience and the the messages here I think people are making it more complicated then it really is.

I first went back and made sure I had a working freenx 4.0 (1.40) system. I checked both the linux and windows clients and everything was working fine.

I then put down the overlay did an emerge nxserver-freenx, restarted nxserver. I then tested the existing 1.4 clients and everything was still able to connect with the 1.4 clients.

I upgraded clients to 1.5 and got the cookies do not match error, changed the node.conf restarted nxserver and all was happy once again.

That is all I did to finally get the upgrade to work.

jeff

alinv · Guru Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 395 Location: Bucharest

arjay1 · n00b Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 57 Location: Coin, Spain

hey guys - I'm not talking about being unable to get 1.5.0 to work, or whatever. I'm talking about not being able to get ANY version to work. If any of you have a simple step min-howto for me I would sure appreciate it!!

RJ

Q-collective · Advocate Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 2071

Any ideas about the compile error I posted a while back?