Excessive SSH Tunnel/Traffic

[Jim Kronebusch]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:40:45 -0400 (EDT), Steve Wu wrote
> We're running Edubuntu 7.04 with a very small number of clients. I noticed the 
> other day that when a client station is logged in, there is excessive traffic 
> from that workstation. The LEDs on the switch are constantly lit. I plugged 
> the client station into a hub and dropped my sniffer laptop on it. It's all 
> SSH packets - request and response - between the client and server. With just 
> the user logged in, there's a ton of traffic and it does not seem to matter 
> what the user is doing (if anything).
> 
> With the user logged off, there is a "normal" packet flow. What service is 
> running in Edubuntu that is causing this chatter when a user logs in? How can 
> I further diag the problem to find out what the problem is? This can't be 
> normal. I haven't checked my other clients, but my guess is they are all doing 
> this. I will check for sure tomorrow.
> 
> Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thx!

If you are using a default install of Edubuntu this sounds normal to me.  The tie
between the thin client and the server is all setup to tunnel via ssh.  So all graphical
data when logged in will be sent to the client from the server via ssh, and all input
from the client will be sent to the server via ssh.  If you want ldm can be configured
to not use ssh after bootup with a few changes in the ldm file and the lts.conf.  I
guess it depends on how much traffic "excessive" is.  It makes sense there is more
traffic when logged in as then all the display graphics are changing and there is likely
constant input from the user.  When at the login screen things are pretty static and
traffic should be minimal or some keep alives.

Hope that helps,
Jim

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by the Cotter Technology 
Department, and is believed to be clean.