Re: [PLUG] linux to solaris x-term

["William H. Magill" <magill@mcgillsociety.org>]

On Saturday, August 2, 2003, at 12:23  AM, Bradley Molnar wrote:
> During the brief time I used Solaris, I found that it had a neat 
> feature to
> be able to log into a remote computer from the main login screen.

The login screen was probably in fact XDM running XDMCP which is a part 
of the X protocol which advertises available systems supporting X 
connections.

It was a protocol developed back in the "friendly" days of the 
Internet. Today, most security conscious sites do not run it as it 
advertises "entry points" to anybody who cares to look -- rather than 
only to those who should know about them.

> Recently, I (mostly accidently) was able to log on from a Solaris 9 
> machine
> to a linux box (RH9) which was allowing remote x-logins (I think that 
> is
> what they are called).
>
> Now, my question is, how do I do the reverse.  How do I use a linux 
> box as
> an x-term for a solaris server (and also, what is the correct 
> terminology).
> Is there anyway to set this up so that at a graphical login you can 
> choose
> btwn the local system and a remote system?

Man XDM. But it will require cooperation of both ends, the client and 
the server. As Chris points out "client and server" are "backwards" in 
X11:

The X-Server runs on the display device. (your linux box)
The X-Client runs on the server. (xterm on Solaris)

This is because the Solaris Server is displaying the output of its 
X-Client program (xterm) on the remote display controlled by the 
X-Server.

And unless things have been modified to recently, (I haven't used XDMCP 
for way more than 5 years now) all XDMCP traffic and the resulting 
X-login information (your userid and password and all traffic) are in 
plain text and therefore subject to sniffing. Similarly, you do not 
have the availability of an SSH tunnel or any other sort of VPN 
facility.

T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
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magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com

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