Hi all,
I am new to CentOS and freeNX -- both look really awesome, a huge thanks to all the people making them happen.
I am having a problem with freenx that appears to be specific to centos 5. my client authenticates but then no desktop comes up. however, when I connect to a similar machine running centos 4.4, I authenticate and the gnome desktop just pops up sweet as can be. I also have a vnc connection to my centos 5 workstation working, and can get a gnome desktop through vnc, and direct X11 connections are fine.
the two nxserver machines have stable IP addresses, I have root access. the nxclient machine is a mac G4 PPC (which presumably makes no difference at all), with very recent download of the mac OS X client from nomachine.
I followed the instructions for setting up freenx on centos 4.4 found here: http://linuxgazette.net/135/knaggs.html and it worked perfectly the first time I tried. the key steps were
wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/extras/i386/RPMS/nx-1.5.0-1.centos4.i386.r... wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/extras/i386/RPMS/freenx-0.5.0-10.c4.noarch... sudo rpm -Uvh nx-1.5.0-1.centos4.i386.rpm sudo rpm -Uvh freenx-0.5.0-10.c4.noarch.rpm
plus a quick copy-paste of the client dsa key, and nxserver --adduser <me>
For CentOS 5, I tried the yum-based instructions found at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX (which says that freenx only works with centos 4, and the bottom of page says "FreeNX (last edited 2007-02-08 23:38:36 by JohnnyHughes )" -- hopefully its just the wiki is out of date)
I also tried adapting the above steps to use the centos 5 packages from http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/extras/i386/RPMS/ freenx-0.5.0-13.el5.centos.i386.rpm 08-Apr-2007 11:00 66K nx-2.1.0-6.el5.centos.i386.rpm 08-Apr-2007 11:00 2.9M
either way, I get authenticated but no desktop comes up in the X11 window on the client machine. (just to be explicit: using exactly the same client I do get a desktop on the centos 4.4 machine).
While trying to connect, During this time, on the remote (CentOS) machine, its clear that something is happening, because "ps -ef | grep nx" on the server machine gives me
root 5627 3378 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 sshd: nx [priv] nx 5629 5627 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 sshd: nx@notty nx 5630 5629 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/nxserver -c /usr/bin/nxserver nx 5771 5630 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 sleep 60 jg 5800 5393 0 10:38 pts/1 00:00:00 grep nx
I checked out a couple other things on the web on how to set it up and these did not help (they were very helpful, just not with my problem about the desktop not coming up). E.g., http://fedoranews.org/contributors/rick_stout/freenx/
I also noted other posts about freenx on this list, but they did not seem to be relevant
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that freenx only works with centos 4, which I am hoping is simply out of date, as freenx is shipped as part of centos 5. I saw a post today saying that freenx is supposed to work exactly the same on CentOS 5 as per instructions for 4. hmmm. I've tried uninstalling freenx on the centOS 5 machine and reinstalling.
any suggestions appreciated! many thanks,
--Jeremy
On 4/26/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that freenx only works with centos 4, which I am hoping is simply out of date, as freenx is shipped as part of centos 5. I saw a post today saying that freenx is supposed to work exactly the same on CentOS 5 as per instructions for 4. hmmm. I've tried uninstalling freenx on the centOS 5 machine and reinstalling.
any suggestions appreciated! many thanks,
I wish I could say something useful to you. I followed the instructions at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX and all is fine on CentOS 5.
All I did on the server mchine was to 'run yum install nx freenx' and nothing else. It creates user "nx" on the server. For the client, again, I followed the procedure exactly as shown on the wiki page, nothing extra.
Akemi
On 4/26/07, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/26/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that
freenx
only works with centos 4, which I am hoping is simply out of date, as
freenx
is shipped as part of centos 5. I saw a post today saying that freenx is supposed to work exactly the same on CentOS 5 as per instructions for 4. hmmm. I've tried uninstalling freenx on the centOS 5 machine and reinstalling.
any suggestions appreciated! many thanks,
I wish I could say something useful to you. I followed the instructions at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX and all is fine on CentOS 5.
All I did on the server mchine was to 'run yum install nx freenx' and nothing else. It creates user "nx" on the server. For the client, again, I followed the procedure exactly as shown on the wiki page, nothing extra.
thanks for the encouragement, Akemi!
here's slightly more info. I just tried nmap'ing the two machines ("nmap -p 1-65535 localhost"). the centos 4.4 machine has two open ports when I have an active nx connection: port 22/tcp for ssh, and port 7000/tcp for "afs3-fileserver". on the centos 5 machine, I have port 22/tcp open for ssh but nothing else is open, nor does something pop open when the nxclient authenticates.
On Thursday 26 April 2007 4:59:33 pm Jeremy Gray wrote:
On 4/26/07, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/26/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that
freenx
only works with centos 4, which I am hoping is simply out of date, as
freenx
is shipped as part of centos 5. I saw a post today saying that freenx is supposed to work exactly the same on CentOS 5 as per instructions for 4. hmmm. I've tried uninstalling freenx on the centOS 5 machine and reinstalling.
any suggestions appreciated! many thanks,
I wish I could say something useful to you. I followed the instructions at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX and all is fine on CentOS 5.
All I did on the server mchine was to 'run yum install nx freenx' and nothing else. It creates user "nx" on the server. For the client, again, I followed the procedure exactly as shown on the wiki page, nothing extra.
thanks for the encouragement, Akemi!
here's slightly more info. I just tried nmap'ing the two machines ("nmap -p 1-65535 localhost"). the centos 4.4 machine has two open ports when I have an active nx connection: port 22/tcp for ssh, and port 7000/tcp for "afs3-fileserver". on the centos 5 machine, I have port 22/tcp open for ssh but nothing else is open, nor does something pop open when the nxclient authenticates.
AFAIK, nx only needs ssh. Could the problem be that the CentOS 5 box is not allowing X11 forwarding over ssh?
check your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file for 'X11Forwarding yes'
HTH, Tim
On 4/26/07, Tim Wunder tim@thewunders.org wrote:
AFAIK, nx only needs ssh. Could the problem be that the CentOS 5 box is not allowing X11 forwarding over ssh?
check your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file for 'X11Forwarding yes'
NX does not depend on X11 forwarding. So, this can be left no.
Akemi
Hi all,
thanks for the many thoughtful replies, especially Trevor Benson for the detailed list of suggestions. I've everything suggested but still get authentication that times out before a gnome session comes up. I tried scraping things out on the server side, reinstalling, rebooting, make a completely new test user account, restarting the X on the client side. I try to connect to the new account, and still get authenticated but no gnome for centos 5. from the same nxclient I can connect to a centos 4.4 box, and vnc connects fine to centos 5 and gives me a gnome desktop. looks to me like it might be a quirk of the new mac client interacting with the centos 5 nxserver (but not 4.4), based on other folks connecting just fine to centos 5.
there was a note about "known issues" on the wiki, so I also installed the NX client for linux and installing on the server: rpm -i nxclient-2.1.0-17.i386.rpm this gives me new stuff in /usr/NX which I also copied to the freenx style directory for good measure and restarted things cp /usr/NX/bin/nxclient /etc/nxserver/ nxserver --restart
I tried connecting from client, authenticates but no gnome.
the nxclient I am using (mac OS X) I downloaded within the last week, the nomachine site says its release 2.1.0-17. and using this same installation of nxclient on my mac I get a gnome session when connecting to a centos 4.4box
in case its useful to have more of a play-by-play in the archives, here what I tried:
#on centos 5 server machine, I removed, reinstalled, rebooted: su yum remove nx freenx # the remove succeeds, I do the following for good measure rm -Rf /etc/nxserver rm -Rf ~<me>/.nx reboot
# server comes up su yum update yum install nx freenx # output looks good, includes: # Stopping sshd: [ OK ] # Starting sshd: [ OK ] # Installed: freenx.i386 0:0.5.0-13.el5.centos nx.i386 0:2.1.0-6.el5.centos # Complete!
nxserver --adduser me nxserver --passwd me # manually copy /etc/nxserver/client.id_dsa.key --> client nxviewer reboot
# server comes up nmap -p 1-65535 localhost # the only open port is # 22/tcp open ssh # and I have ssh forwarding enabled, even though it should not make a difference
nxserver --status # NX> 100 NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-60-SVN OS (GPL) # NX> 110 NX Server is running # NX> 999 Bye
# so at this point I try to connect from the client, I get authenticated and then nothing more, times out after a minute # now I add a new user account to the system, testuser, a completely new account, and add this account to the nx users nxserver --useradd testuser
# from the client, I try connecting to account testuser, get authenticated, no gnome desktop (or anything else), # and the connection times out. the error in the client "details" window is NX> 203 NXSSH running with pid: 1732 NX> 285 Enabling check on switch command NX> 285 Enabling skip of SSH config files NX> 285 Setting the preferred NX options NX> 200 Connected to address: ***edited*** on port: 22 NX> 202 Authenticating user: nx NX> 208 Using auth method: publickey HELLO NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-60-SVN OS (GPL) NX> 105 hello NXCLIENT - Version 1.5.0 NX> 134 Accepted protocol: 1.5.0 NX> 105 SET SHELL_MODE SHELL NX> 105 SET AUTH_MODE PASSWORD NX> 105 login NX> 101 User: testuser NX> 102 Password: NX> 103 Welcome to: ***edited*** user: testuser NX> 105 listsession --user="testuser" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1280x854x32+render" --type="unix-gnome" NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'testuser' for reconnect:
Display Type Session ID Options Depth Screen Status Session Name ------- ---------------- -------------------------------- -------- ----- -------------- ----------- ------------------------------
NX> 148 Server capacity: not reached for user: testuser NX> 105 startsession --link="isdn" --backingstore="1" --nodelay="1" --encryption="1" --cache="8M" --images="32M" --media="0" --session="***edited***" --type="unix-gnome" --geometry="1024x768+128+30" --kbtype="query" --screeninfo="1024x768x32+render"
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host Killed by signal 15.
On Thu, 2007-04-26 at 21:10 -0400, Jeremy Gray wrote:
Hi all,
thanks for the many thoughtful replies, especially Trevor Benson for the detailed list of suggestions. I've everything suggested but still get authentication that times out before a gnome session comes up. I tried scraping things out on the server side, reinstalling, rebooting, make a completely new test user account, restarting the X on the client side. I try to connect to the new account, and still get authenticated but no gnome for centos 5. from the same nxclient I can connect to a centos 4.4 box, and vnc connects fine to centos 5 and gives me a gnome desktop. looks to me like it might be a quirk of the new mac client interacting with the centos 5 nxserver (but not 4.4), based on other folks connecting just fine to centos 5.
there was a note about "known issues" on the wiki, so I also installed the NX client for linux and installing on the server: rpm -i nxclient-2.1.0-17.i386.rpm this gives me new stuff in /usr/NX which I also copied to the freenx style directory for good measure and restarted things cp /usr/NX/bin/nxclient /etc/nxserver/ nxserver --restart
I tried connecting from client, authenticates but no gnome.
the nxclient I am using (mac OS X) I downloaded within the last week, the nomachine site says its release 2.1.0-17. and using this same installation of nxclient on my mac I get a gnome session when connecting to a centos 4.4 box
in case its useful to have more of a play-by-play in the archives, here what I tried:
#on centos 5 server machine, I removed, reinstalled, rebooted: su yum remove nx freenx # the remove succeeds, I do the following for good measure rm -Rf /etc/nxserver rm -Rf ~<me>/.nx reboot
# server comes up su yum update yum install nx freenx # output looks good, includes: # Stopping sshd: [ OK ] # Starting sshd: [ OK ] # Installed: freenx.i386 0:0.5.0-13.el5.centos nx.i386 0:2.1.0-6.el5.centos # Complete!
nxserver --adduser me nxserver --passwd me # manually copy /etc/nxserver/client.id_dsa.key --> client nxviewer reboot
# server comes up nmap -p 1-65535 localhost # the only open port is # 22/tcp open ssh # and I have ssh forwarding enabled, even though it should not make a difference
nxserver --status # NX> 100 NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-60-SVN OS (GPL) # NX> 110 NX Server is running # NX> 999 Bye
# so at this point I try to connect from the client, I get authenticated and then nothing more, times out after a minute # now I add a new user account to the system, testuser, a completely new account, and add this account to the nx users nxserver --useradd testuser
# from the client, I try connecting to account testuser, get authenticated, no gnome desktop (or anything else), # and the connection times out. the error in the client "details" window is NX> 203 NXSSH running with pid: 1732 NX> 285 Enabling check on switch command NX> 285 Enabling skip of SSH config files NX> 285 Setting the preferred NX options NX> 200 Connected to address: ***edited*** on port: 22 NX> 202 Authenticating user: nx NX> 208 Using auth method: publickey HELLO NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-60-SVN OS (GPL) NX> 105 hello NXCLIENT - Version 1.5.0 NX> 134 Accepted protocol: 1.5.0 NX> 105 SET SHELL_MODE SHELL NX> 105 SET AUTH_MODE PASSWORD NX> 105 login NX> 101 User: testuser NX> 102 Password: NX> 103 Welcome to: ***edited*** user: testuser NX> 105 listsession --user="testuser" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1280x854x32+render" --type="unix-gnome" NX> 127 Sessions list of user 'testuser' for reconnect:
Display Type Session ID Options Depth Screen Status Session Name
NX> 148 Server capacity: not reached for user: testuser NX> 105 startsession --link="isdn" --backingstore="1" --nodelay="1" --encryption="1" --cache="8M" --images="32M" --media="0" --session="***edited***" --type="unix-gnome" --geometry="1024x768+128 +30" --kbtype="query" --screeninfo="1024x768x32+render"
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host Killed by signal 15.
Now ... this seems a really silly question ... but I will ask it anyway.
You do fully have Gnome installed on the server in question, right?
Now ... this seems a really silly question ... but I will ask it anyway.
You do fully have Gnome installed on the server in question, right?
well, at this point, I'm ready for questions that might seem really silly! bring 'em on :-)
I'm new to gnome, but I assume its all there because: I did a clean install of CentOS 5, and have done "yum update" several times since. I use gnome at the console, no issues. a crisp looking gnome desktop pops up when I use vnc to connect from the same mac client to the same centos 5 server. (in my ~/.vnc/xstartup file, the final call is "gnome-session &")
so, while I certainly don't know my way around gnome, I would think that the big chunks are all there at least. I have ~/.gnome ~/.gnome2 and ~/.gnome2_private
ls /usr/bin/gnome* | wc returns 68 things (see below). not sure where else to look for gnome stuff
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37796 Feb 18 13:33 /usr/bin/gnome-about -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 44100 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-about-me -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 64184 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-accessibility-keyboard-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60064 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-at-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14640 Jan 6 04:47 /usr/bin/gnome-audio-profiles-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 56728 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-background-properties lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Apr 13 14:25 /usr/bin/gnome-calculator -> gcalctool -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 127044 Jan 6 04:47 /usr/bin/gnome-cd lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Apr 13 14:25 /usr/bin/gnome-character-map -> gucharmap -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 53324 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-control-center -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 38884 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-default-applications-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 21096 Mar 14 08:54 /usr/bin/gnome-default-printer -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 94656 Mar 14 12:02 /usr/bin/gnome-desktop-item-edit -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 96252 Mar 14 12:29 /usr/bin/gnome-dictionary -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35724 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-display-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9487 Jan 6 05:39 /usr/bin/gnome-doc-prepare lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 Apr 13 14:30 /usr/bin/gnome-eject -> /usr/bin/gnome-mount -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18392 Mar 21 21:46 /usr/bin/gnome-file-share-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 69700 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-font-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 27272 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-font-viewer lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Apr 13 18:49 /usr/bin/gnome-help -> yelp -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 74012 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-keybinding-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 121884 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-keyboard-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 97396 Jan 8 23:19 /usr/bin/gnome-keyring-daemon -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 59532 Jan 6 23:58 /usr/bin/gnome-mount -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 69776 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-mouse-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 56704 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-network-preferences -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11704 Jan 6 00:53 /usr/bin/gnome-open -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 540848 Mar 14 12:02 /usr/bin/gnome-panel lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Apr 13 14:25 /usr/bin/gnome-panel-screenshot -> gnome-screenshot -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16156 Jan 21 18:14 /usr/bin/gnome-pilot-make-password -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16320 Mar 14 12:08 /usr/bin/gnome-power-inhibit-test -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 195272 Mar 14 12:08 /usr/bin/gnome-power-manager -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 69460 Mar 14 12:08 /usr/bin/gnome-power-preferences -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 151028 Mar 14 12:28 /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12820 Mar 14 12:28 /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-command -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 66020 Mar 14 12:28 /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-preferences -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60792 Mar 14 12:29 /usr/bin/gnome-screenshot -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 123884 Mar 14 12:29 /usr/bin/gnome-search-tool -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 129340 Mar 22 13:49 /usr/bin/gnome-session -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 86728 Mar 22 13:49 /usr/bin/gnome-session-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 34964 Mar 22 13:49 /usr/bin/gnome-session-remove -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 35228 Mar 22 13:49 /usr/bin/gnome-session-save -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 88104 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-sound-properties lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Apr 13 14:25 /usr/bin/gnome-system-log -> /usr/bin/consolehelper -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 133884 Mar 14 12:12 /usr/bin/gnome-system-monitor -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 305752 Jan 7 02:31 /usr/bin/gnome-terminal lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5 Apr 13 14:26 /usr/bin/gnome-text-editor -> gedit -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 106800 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-theme-manager -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 43312 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-theme-thumbnailer -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 17644 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-thumbnail-font -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 42176 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-typing-monitor -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 52652 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-ui-properties lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 Apr 13 14:30 /usr/bin/gnome-umount -> /usr/bin/gnome-mount -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14536 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-cat -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14772 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-copy -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16064 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-df -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18508 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-info -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16828 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-ls -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 15084 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-mkdir -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 15872 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-monitor -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14024 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-mv -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 13884 Mar 14 12:31 /usr/bin/gnomevfs-rm -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 66460 Jan 6 04:47 /usr/bin/gnome-volume-control -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 65260 Mar 14 12:26 /usr/bin/gnome-volume-manager -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 25912 Mar 14 12:26 /usr/bin/gnome-volume-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 26872 Mar 14 08:24 /usr/bin/gnome-window-properties -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2098 Mar 22 13:49 /usr/bin/gnome-wm
On 4/27/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
Now ... this seems a really silly question ... but I will ask it anyway.
You do fully have Gnome installed on the server in question, right?
well, at this point, I'm ready for questions that might seem really silly! bring 'em on :-)
Then, here's another silly question. When you copied the key, did you copy the whole thing including the === BEGIN === and === END=== lines?
Akemi
Akemi Yagi wrote:
On 4/27/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
Now ... this seems a really silly question ... but I will ask it
anyway.
You do fully have Gnome installed on the server in question, right?
well, at this point, I'm ready for questions that might seem really silly! bring 'em on :-)
Then, here's another silly question. When you copied the key, did you copy the whole thing including the === BEGIN === and === END=== lines?
I think an error in the key would cause an authentication error instead of what he is seeing (but you might break it deliberately to be sure).
Is gnome starting normally at the console or could there be some problem at that level? I've forgotten if you need to be in runlevel 5 for freenx like you do for remote xdm logins, but that's another possibility.
On 4/27/07, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
Akemi Yagi wrote:
I think an error in the key would cause an authentication error instead of what he is seeing (but you might break it deliberately to be sure).
You are right. This thread being so long, I am losing some facts.
Is gnome starting normally at the console or could there be some problem at that level? I've forgotten if you need to be in runlevel 5 for freenx like you do for remote xdm logins, but that's another possibility.
You do not need runlevel 5. My servers are set to runlevel 3 and NX works OK.
Akemi
thanks for the continuing ideas! but alas, still no desktop. details below. thanks for your patience with the long thread and my little mystery....
Then, here's another silly question. When you copied the key, did you copy the whole thing including the === BEGIN === and === END=== lines?
I think an error in the key would cause an authentication error instead of what he is seeing (but you might break it deliberately to be sure).
I had not copied the ===BEGIN=== and end lines, but I had also not copied them from the client key on the CentOS 4.4 box (which worked anyway), and authentication worked on centos 5
but nonetheless I just tried copy-pasting those lines too (== the whole file contents) from CentOS 5 into the mac client, and get the exact same (lack of) behavior.
and just for completeness, I copied the client dsa key file from the server (using sftp rather than copy paste from a terminal window into the nxclient key window) and then used the import button in the nxclient key window. same thing, authenticates but no hint of a desktop
there is a well known (and mildly annoying) end-of-line character difference between mac and unix, which could potentially come into play. but its a trivial conversion (s /\r/\n/g), and the awesome folks at nomachine have got to know all about it when building an nxclient for mac. and if there was something amiss here, the same copy-paste from CentOS 4.4 would give me the same issue
and yes, deliberately breaking it works just fine :-) , meaning no authentication. I deleted the final '=' from the DSA key (from the key part, not the ===END===, which for me is more like -----END-----) and tried connecting, and it would not authenticate, saying the DSA key was corrupt or had had a passphrase attached to it. when I paste that back in, I get authenticated but no desktop. I also tried deleting a '-' from the ----END---- line, and it fails to authenticate
Is gnome starting normally at the console or could there be some problem
at that level?
yes, at the console its doing lots of lovely gnome-like things, and fires up over vnc
I've forgotten if you need to be in runlevel 5 for
freenx like you do for remote xdm logins, but that's another possibility.
nice idea, but I've been at run level 5 all along. and just verified this with "who -r" (I don't know enough to mess with other run levels). and Akemi says run level 3 is fine
Jeremy Gray wrote:
and yes, deliberately breaking it works just fine :-) , meaning no authentication. I deleted the final '=' from the DSA key (from the key part, not the ===END===, which for me is more like -----END-----) and tried connecting, and it would not authenticate, saying the DSA key was corrupt or had had a passphrase attached to it. when I paste that back in, I get authenticated but no desktop. I also tried deleting a '-' from the ----END---- line, and it fails to authenticate
Is gnome starting normally at the console or could there be some problem at that level?yes, at the console its doing lots of lovely gnome-like things, and fires up over vnc
OK, the next obvious thing is the user logging in. Did you log in as the same user on the console for the gnome test? Also, in the NX client's advanced configuration section, did you check the 'enable ssl encryption of all traffic' box. That might or might not be needed, depending on firewalling.
keep 'em coming!
yes, at the console its doing lots of lovely gnome-like things, and fires up over vnc
OK, the next obvious thing is the user logging in. Did you log in as the same user on the console for the gnome test?
yes, I've been using the same user account at both the console and the nxclient. and I also made a new testuser account (completely new) on the server, no difference: authentication but no desktop.
Also, in the NX
client's advanced configuration section, did you check the 'enable ssl encryption of all traffic' box. That might or might not be needed, depending on firewalling.
yes indeed, ssl encryption of all traffic is enabled. and --encryption="1" shows up in the "details" window on the client error message section for the "startsession ..." call
there's no proxy that I'm going through for either box (CentOS 5, 4.4). the two firewalls do differ a little. the centos 4.4 one has these two lines in iptables -L output ACCEPT ipv6-crypt-- anywhere anywhere ACCEPT ipv6-auth-- anywhere anywhere
whereas 5 does not but instead has ACCEPT esp -- anywhere anywhere ACCEPT ah -- anywhere anywhere
and the centos 5 also has the line (which 4.4 does not) ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:ipp
Also, in the NX
client's advanced configuration section, did you check the 'enable ssl encryption of all traffic' box. That might or might not be needed, depending on firewalling.
also, disabling the firewall (through the system GUI) on the CentOS 5 machine (nxserver) has no effect, the nxclient authenticates but no desktop.
oh well. its look like its vnc for me, rather than freenx. I'm throwing in the towel. thanks much to all who thought about this one.
best regards to all,
--Jeremy
a final-final note (and then I'll really clam up, promise!): I just tried to connect from an nxclient running on windows (an intel mac runing windows in bootcamp), and got the same thing: the nxclient authenticates but no desktop when the nxserver is on centos 5, whereas it conects fine to centos 4.4 as the nxserver (here with x-win32 as the X11 window running on the client side).
so to recap, my little issue (freenx authenticates but no desktop, on a centos 5 but not a centos 4 machine as nxserver) happens from both mac and windows nxclient. I think this narrows it down to something about my centos 5 nxserver (that machine), and something that is not: the firewall or SELinux (same thing with the firewall disabled & selinux permissive), gnome (the console and vnc give me a clean gnome session with the same user account), authentication key issues (authenticates just fine), a specific user account (same for new account), or ssl encryption (enabled), run level or ssh forwarding (these are not supposed to matter much; I'm at run level 5 with ssh forwarding enabled).
On 4/28/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
so to recap, my little issue (freenx authenticates but no desktop, on a centos 5 but not a centos 4 machine as nxserver) happens from both mac and windows nxclient. I think this narrows it down to something about my centos 5 nxserver (that machine), and something that is not: the firewall or SELinux (same thing with the firewall disabled & selinux permissive), gnome (the console and vnc give me a clean gnome session with the same user account), authentication key issues (authenticates just fine), a specific user account (same for new account), or ssl encryption (enabled), run level or ssh forwarding (these are not supposed to matter much; I'm at run level 5 with ssh forwarding enabled).
OK, I did something I had never done before - installing nxclient on a Windows box and connecting to my CentOS-5 mchine. NO problem there.
You can probably see both of my hands up in the air. :)
Akemi
Jeremy Gray wrote:
a final-final note (and then I'll really clam up, promise!): I just tried to connect from an nxclient running on windows (an intel mac runing windows in bootcamp), and got the same thing: the nxclient authenticates but no desktop when the nxserver is on centos 5, whereas it conects fine to centos 4.4 as the nxserver (here with x-win32 as the X11 window running on the client side).
so to recap, my little issue (freenx authenticates but no desktop, on a centos 5 but not a centos 4 machine as nxserver) happens from both mac and windows nxclient. I think this narrows it down to something about my centos 5 nxserver (that machine), and something that is not: the firewall or SELinux (same thing with the firewall disabled & selinux permissive), gnome (the console and vnc give me a clean gnome session with the same user account), authentication key issues (authenticates just fine), a specific user account (same for new account), or ssl encryption (enabled), run level or ssh forwarding (these are not supposed to matter much; I'm at run level 5 with ssh forwarding enabled).
Why don't you try a fresh centos5 install and a simple 'yum install freenx' to see if that works for you? If you don't have a spare text box you can do it under vmware. If that works, then you can compare the working configuration to the one that doesn't work to pin down the difference.
The only other thing I can think of is that the connection may be trying to restore a broken session or one that doesn't really exist. I used to see that on older versions of freenx but I've forgotten how to clean up the session info.
Why don't you try a fresh centos5 install and a simple 'yum install freenx' to see if that works for you? If you don't have a spare text box you can do it under vmware. If that works, then you can compare the working configuration to the one that doesn't work to pin down the difference.
thanks Les, yes, this seems like the way to go when I have more time to give freenx. I like freenx more that vnc, and feel like I should be close to getting it up.
The only other thing I can think of is that the connection may be trying
to restore a broken session or one that doesn't really exist. I used to see that on older versions of freenx but I've forgotten how to clean up the session info.
I tried nxserver --cleanup, as well as removing the old installation of freenx plus various files in ~ and reinstalling
issue solved! indeed, it was a bit silly: tcpwrappers was preventing sshd from connecting to localhost, as I discovered when poring through /var/log/secure . simply adding sshd: 127.0.0.1: ALLOW to /etc/hosts.allow and all is well.
thanks for being patient with my newbie confusion!
On 4/30/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
issue solved! indeed, it was a bit silly: tcpwrappers was preventing sshd from connecting to localhost, as I discovered when poring through /var/log/secure . simply adding
sshd: 127.0.0.1: ALLOW to /etc/hosts.allow and all is well.
thanks for being patient with my newbie confusion!
Congrats! I am so happy for you.
Akemi
just a thought: this might be worth putting on the wiki under troubleshooting
On 4/30/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
issue solved! indeed, it was a bit silly: tcpwrappers was preventing sshd from connecting to localhost, as I discovered when poring through /var/log/secure . simply adding sshd: 127.0.0.1: ALLOW to /etc/hosts.allow and all is well.
thanks for being patient with my newbie confusion!
and here's even more details
On 4/26/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/26/07, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/26/07, Jeremy Gray jrgray@gmail.com wrote:
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that
freenx
only works with centos 4, which I am hoping is simply out of date, as
freenx
is shipped as part of centos 5. I saw a post today saying that freenx
is
supposed to work exactly the same on CentOS 5 as per instructions for
hmmm. I've tried uninstalling freenx on the centOS 5 machine and reinstalling.
any suggestions appreciated! many thanks,
I wish I could say something useful to you. I followed the instructions at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX and all is fine on CentOS 5.
All I did on the server mchine was to 'run yum install nx freenx' and nothing else. It creates user "nx" on the server. For the client, again, I followed the procedure exactly as shown on the wiki page, nothing extra.
thanks for the encouragement, Akemi!
here's slightly more info. I just tried nmap'ing the two machines ("nmap -p 1-65535 localhost"). the centos 4.4 machine has two open ports when I have an active nx connection: port 22/tcp for ssh, and port 7000/tcp for "afs3-fileserver". on the centos 5 machine, I have port 22/tcp open for ssh but nothing else is open, nor does something pop open when the nxclient authenticates.
sorry, I should have posted this in my original post (but didn't know where to find it). the error message in the client when the connection attempt times out says:
NX> 203 NXSSH running with pid: 1600 NX> 285 Enabling check on switch command NX> 285 Enabling skip of SSH config files NX> 285 Setting the preferred NX options NX> 200 Connected to address: ***edited*** on port: 22 NX> 202 Authenticating user: nx NX> 208 Using auth method: publickey HELLO NXSERVER - Version 1.5.0-60-SVN OS (GPL) NX> 105 hello NXCLIENT - Version 1.5.0 NX> 134 Accepted protocol: 1.5.0 NX> 105 SET SHELL_MODE SHELL NX> 105 SET AUTH_MODE PASSWORD NX> 105 login NX> 101 User: ***edited*** NX> 102 Password: NX> 103 Welcome to: ***edited*** user: ***edited*** NX> 105 listsession --user="***edited***" --status="suspended,running" --geometry="1280x854x32+render" --type="unix-gnome" NX> 127 Sessions list of user '***edited***' for reconnect:
Display Type Session ID Options Depth Screen Status Session Name ------- ---------------- -------------------------------- -------- ----- -------------- ----------- ------------------------------
NX> 148 Server capacity: not reached for user: ***edited*** NX> 105 startsession --link="isdn" --backingstore="1" --nodelay="1" --encryption="1" --cache="8M" --images="32M" --media="0" --session="**edited**" --type="unix-gnome" --geometry="1024x768+128+30" --kbtype="query" --screeninfo="1024x768x32+render"
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host Killed by signal 15.
there are some minor difference in the startsession call between the centos 4.4 (when looking at ~/.nx/temp/sshlog) and centos 5 (the above error log), but these seem really minor (--kbtype and --link). a mystery. maybe I'm just destined to be a vnc user :-).
-----Original Message----- From: Jeremy Gray [mailto:jrgray@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:21 PM To: centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] FreeNX authenticates but no desktop on centos 5 ??
Hi all,
I am new to CentOS and freeNX -- both look really awesome, a huge thanks to all the people making them happen.
I am having a problem with freenx that appears to be specific to centos 5. my client authenticates but then no desktop comes up. however, when I connect to a similar machine running centos 4.4, I authenticate and the gnome desktop just pops up sweet as can be. I also have a vnc connection to my centos 5 workstation working, and can get a gnome desktop through vnc, and direct X11 connections are fine.
Not that I am an expert, but I use it often on 4.4. I just setup nx and freenx on CentOS 5 last night so I could get into Xen to adjust a Windows server.
the two nxserver machines have stable IP addresses, I have root access. the nxclient machine is a mac G4 PPC (which presumably makes no difference at all), with very recent download of the mac OS X client from nomachine.
What is the version number of nxclient that the mac G4 have installed?
I followed the instructions for setting up freenx on centos 4.4 found here:
http://linuxgazette.net/135/knaggs.htmlfreenx-0.5.0-13.el5.centos
and it worked perfectly the first time I tried. the key steps were
wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/extras/i386/RPMS/nx-1.5.0-1. centos4.i386.rpm wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/extras/i386/RPMS/freenx-0.5. 0-10.c4.noarch.rpm http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/extras/i386/RPMS/freenx-0.5 .0-10.c4.noarch.rpm sudo rpm -Uvh nx-1.5.0-1.centos4.i386.rpm sudo rpm -Uvh freenx-0.5.0-10.c4.noarch.rpm
plus a quick copy-paste of the client dsa key, and nxserver --adduser <me>
For CentOS 5, I tried the yum-based instructions found at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX (which says that freenx only works with centos 4, and the bottom of page says "FreeNX (last edited 2007-02-08 23:38:36 by JohnnyHughes )" -- hopefully its just the wiki is out of date)
Wrong and out of date.
I simply did a 'yum install nx freenx'. Once it finished I coppied the /etc/nxserver/client.id_dsa.key (from the server) to my (client) system, and renamed it to the hostname.id_dsa.key for tracking. Obviously imported it into the nxclient as the key to use with ssl encryption enabled. Then connected. Took me about 2 minutes to finish short of downloading the latest linux client for my workstation. The install is intelligent and restarts ssh for you, and works out of the box. I also installed this server with ONLY the Server X Windows option, disabling the Gnome and any other desktop (not sure if server just enabled gnome after the fact), but when I setup nxclient, I told it to open Gnome, and I still got a desktop.
Of course I was logging in as root at the time, so I skipped the adding the user step, but I often do for testing initially to ensure its working. But obviously your user steps should apply for accounts other then root.
I also tried adapting the above steps to use the centos 5 packages from http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/extras/i386/RPMS/ freenx-0.5.0-13.el5.centos.i386.rpm 08-Apr-2007 11:00 66K nx-2.1.0-6.el5.centos.i386.rpm 08-Apr-2007 11:00 2.9M
either way, I get authenticated but no desktop comes up in the X11 window on the client machine. (just to be explicit: using exactly the same client I do get a desktop on the centos 4.4 machine).
While trying to connect, During this time, on the remote (CentOS) machine, its clear that something is happening, because "ps -ef | grep nx" on the server machine gives me
root 5627 3378 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 sshd: nx [priv] nx 5629 5627 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 sshd: nx@notty nx 5630 5629 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/nxserver -c /usr/bin/nxserver nx 5771 5630 0 10:38 ? 00:00:00 sleep 60 jg 5800 5393 0 10:38 pts/1 00:00:00 grep nx
I checked out a couple other things on the web on how to set it up and these did not help (they were very helpful, just not with my problem about the desktop not coming up). E.g., http://fedoranews.org/contributors/rick_stout/freenx/
I also noted other posts about freenx on this list, but they did not seem to be relevant
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that freenx only works with centos 4, which I am hoping is simply out of date, as freenx is shipped as part of centos 5. I saw a post today saying that freenx is supposed to work exactly the same on CentOS 5 as per instructions for 4. hmmm. I've tried uninstalling freenx on the centOS 5 machine and reinstalling.
Deffinately out of date, first hand experience tells me it does work, at least for me. Have you tried logging into root or other users? If you havent taken the exact steps I did, remove the other components, just yum install like I did, and recopy the client.id_dsa.key. If the system isnt in production and you can restart it then do after you uninstall. Hate to suggest a windowism, but just to make sure the X server on the local box is restarted if its running, and ssh is flushed before it reloads the NX configuration again and restarts (which you should see during the yum installations).
any suggestions appreciated! many thanks,
--Jeremy
On 4/26/07, Trevor Benson tBenson@a-1networks.com wrote:
For CentOS 5, I tried the yum-based instructions found at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX (which says that freenx only works with centos 4, and the bottom of page says "FreeNX (last edited 2007-02-08 23:38:36 by JohnnyHughes )" -- hopefully its just the wiki is out of date)
Wrong and out of date.
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that freenx only works with centos 4,
Deffinately out of date
It has not been updated for CentOS 5. True. But be patient here. There must be other pages that are yet to be adjusted to accommodate the 5. Now that the web radio appearance is over, Johnny Hughes may be more relaxed and can even find the time to get all the updates done. :-)
Akemi
On 4/26/07, Akemi Yagi amyagi@gmail.com wrote:
On 4/26/07, Trevor Benson tBenson@a-1networks.com wrote:
For CentOS 5, I tried the yum-based instructions found at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX (which says that freenx only works with centos 4, and the bottom of page says "FreeNX (last edited 2007-02-08 23:38:36 by JohnnyHughes )" -- hopefully its just the wiki is out of date)
Wrong and out of date.
However, I note that at http://wiki.centos.org/FreeNX is says that freenx only works with centos 4,
Deffinately out of date
It has not been updated for CentOS 5. True. But be patient here. There must be other pages that are yet to be adjusted to accommodate the 5. Now that the web radio appearance is over, Johnny Hughes may be more relaxed and can even find the time to get all the updates done. :-)
As if I must prove myself correct... The FreeNX wiki page has been magically updated. Thanks, Johnny!
Akemi
-
Akemi Yagi -
Jeremy Gray -
Johnny Hughes -
Les Mikesell -
Tim Wunder -
Trevor Benson