HOWTO: Can I use FreeNX with Ubuntu?

[jdong]

Q:How can I use FreeNX with Ubuntu?

A:
EDIT: For those who don't know what FreeNX is, freeNX is a remote desktop protocol, like VNC. Unlike VNC, FreeNX compresses at the X protocol level, giving it a much better experience over low-bandwidth (and high bandwidth) line. To give you an idea of FreeNX's power, I can use Smooth Scrolling in Firefox over a dial-up line without excessive jerking. Over cable/dsl lines, you can barely notice that you're not actually at the system.

It's not in Ubuntu's repositories, but is available for Debian. Add the following line to your /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://kanotix.com/files/debian/ ./

The repository is for Kanotix, a Debian/SID Knoppix derivative.

Run apt-get install freenx.

Then, run nxsetup. If you want a nomachine key (RECOMMENDED FOR SIMPLICITY), run nxsetup --setup-nomachine-key instead. Please google the command and read the security implications of doing so! (Basically if FreeNX is flawed, there's a possibility of gaining SSH access as the NX user remotely!)

Make sure that SSH is running for FreeNX to work properly.


**Newer (like these) versions of FreeNX no longer need a nxserver --adduser command. Any user that can log into the system via PAM can log in remotely with NX. Running the nxserver --adduser commands is harmless though.

There are also nxclient deb's in the repository, so browse it and enjoy!
Important Note!
The repository also contains up-to-date reiser4progs (a good thing if you want to try reiser4, and doesn't affect you if you don't use reiser4 at all)
It also has a newer java-package that supersedes Ubuntu's. The Kanotix java-package works perfectly on Ubuntu, so not really a problem either. Just a heads-up in case you wanted to stay as purely Ubuntu as possible!

UPDATE: As someone pointed out, Kanotix FreeNX now depend on libpng being newer or equal to 1.2.7. Warty has version 1.2.5.

You can always grab the Hoary version of libpng. http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libp/libpng3 and friends are in Ubuntu's repository.

[Rancoras]

Ok, it looks like ssh is working fine. I can ssh into the box from here at work with putty on windows XP.

I installed the NX client for windows XP from nomachine. I think I set everything up ok, but it seems that authentication for user nx is failing. I see that the user nx is set up. Here's the output from the nxclient on windows.

NX> 203 NXSSH running with pid: 684
NX> 200 Connected to address: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX on port: 22
NX> 202 Authenticating user: nx
NX> 208 Using auth method: publickey
NX> 204 Authentication failed.

Any ideas?

[fulvioo]

I get the same error code

[jdong]

did you use the --setup-nomachine-key option?

[Rancoras]

did you use the --setup-nomachine-key option?

No, because I like secure. I guess there's a key I need to copy to the client?

[jdong]

yeah, the SSH host key.

[Rancoras]

Ok, I've gotten a little further. I got the appropriate key copied to the client. Now, I'm getting this output:

Info: Proxy running in client mode with pid '752'.
Info: Connecting to remote host '192.168.1.110:5001' on SSH port 'localhost:1749'.
Info: Connection to remote proxy '192.168.1.110:5001' established.
Warning: Connected to remote NXPROXY version 1.4.0 with local version 1.3.2.
Warning: Consider checking http://www.nomachine.com/ for updates.
Info: Handshaking with remote proxy '192.168.1.110:5001' completed.
Info: Synchronizing local and remote caches.
Info: Not using NX delta compression.
Info: Using lan link parameters 16384/80/16/8192.
Info: Using pack method '16m-jpeg-9' with session 'unix-gnome'.
Info: Not using ZLIB stream compression.
Info: Not using remote ZLIB stream compression.
Info: Not using persistent cache.
Info: Using remote server '192.168.1.110:5001'.
Info: Starting X protocol compression.
Info: Established X server connection.
Info: End of session requested by remote proxy.
Info: Shutting down the link and exiting.

I can't find anything about that error on google other than someone else asking for help.

[jdong]

Make sure that you selected use SSH to encrypt data

[Rancoras]

You mean "Enable SSL encryption of all traffic" ? Yup, it's been checked since the start. As a test, I configured a profile to connect to nomachine's testdrive server. All the settings were the same in the client except for the host address. It worked like a charm. That leads me to believe that it's a setting on my host that is the problem.

On a side note, I'm very impressed with the speed that I saw during the testdrive. Much better than VNC.

[jdong]

You mean "Enable SSL encryption of all traffic" ? Yup, it's been checked since the start. As a test, I configured a profile to connect to nomachine's testdrive server. All the settings were the same in the client except for the host address. It worked like a charm. That leads me to believe that it's a setting on my host that is the problem.

On a side note, I'm very impressed with the speed that I saw during the testdrive. Much better than VNC.

speed: amazing, shocking, those are understatements!

If anyone wants to challenge my dial-up claim, go ahead!