LTSP | LTSP5 NX Client

13 May 2009

Instructions

These instructions are for installing NoMachine’s NX Client for Linux on LTSP, to enable connection to a FreeNX (or NX) server from a screen script.

Warning

These instructions are for Debian Lenny. They are my notes of what I did, and may contain errors or missed steps.

This assumes you have FreeNX installed somewhere to which to connect. You might like to see my Install FreeNX for details.

Download NXClient

Visit NoMachine.com and download the Debian .deb installation. Copy the deb file into /opt/ltsp/i386/root.

Install NXClient in chroot

$ sudo chroot /opt/ltsp/i386
# cd root
# apt-get install libaudiofile0
# dpkg -i nxclient_3.3.0-6_i386.deb (or whatever the name of the file is)
# exit

Install OpenBox in chroot

Unfortunately running nxclient restarts X every time that it’s about to connect. The solution is to install a lightweight Window Manager like xfwm4 or openbox.

$ sudo chroot /opt/ltsp/i386
# apt-get install openbox
# exit

Create User Settings

Easiest way is to install NXClient on the server, and run it to create your settings, then copy your /home/user/.nx directory into the chroot.

$ sudo cp -r /home/userid/.nx /opt/ltsp/i386/home/

Move your /home/userid/.ssh/known_hosts file sideways, and connect to any and all freenx servers that you wish to be able to use. Then copy this file to /opt/ltsp/i386/home/.ssh/.

Edit nx settings

Unfortunately these settings include duff information, change to /opt/ltsp/i386/home/.nx/config and edit nxclient.cfg file, change the location in the following line to:

<option key="Personal NX dir" value="/home/.nx" />

Create Screen Script

Create a new screen script:

$ sudo nano /opt/ltsp/i386/usr/share/ltsp/screen.d/openbox

And copy the following into it:

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/bin:$PATH; export PATH
HOME=/home; export HOME

. /usr/share/ltsp/screen-x-common

if [ -x /usr/share/ltsp/xinitrc ]; then
    xinitrc=/usr/share/ltsp/xinitrc
fi

xinit $xinitrc /usr/bin/openbox-session -- ${DISPLAY} vt${TTY} ${X_ARGS} -br >/dev/null

This script will make the root user’s home directory to be /home. I probably should have set it to /root, but when I experimented with that it didn’t work correctly, I suspect I should have persevered, but I did not, with the result that I am pointing everything to /home instead.

Make OpenBox Autostart NXClient

Create the Openbox configuration directory:

$ sudo mkdir -p /opt/ltsp/i386/home/.config/openbox

Then create a new file autostart.sh:

$ sudo nano /opt/ltsp/i386/home/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

And paste in the following:

(sleep 2 && /usr/NX/bin/nxclient) &

And make it executable:

$ sudo chmod a+x /opt/ltsp/i386/home/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

Update `lts.conf`

In lts.conf, on the client you wish to test, just set SCREEN_07 = openbox.

Reboot Client

Reboot client the and test!

References

None, sadly. No-one to blame but me.

chrisjrob