VNC conections from multiple remote achines

[Bernard Peek]

stan wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 08, 2008 at 11:09:14AM -0500, John DeCarlo wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 12:13 PM, stan <stanb at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to set up a machine so that multiple remote machines can
>>> connect and use VNC sessions on this machine. To do this I need some way
>>> of
>>> managing then "session ID" (as in machine_name:1 where 1 is the display
>>> number) dynamically.
>>>
>>
>> I am also not sure what you want to do.  You don't want the remote machines
>> to have to know their session id?
> 
> The remote machines are windows boxes, and are administered by people who
> are not all that familiar with what they are ding. I want to be able to just
> tell them run (for example) vncviewer machine_name:10 and accept multiple
> simultaneous connections, each of which will get their own desktop but as a
> defined "guest"user.
> 
> Does this make it clearer?
> 
Let me see whether I understand the requirement clearly.

As I understand it you want a number of Windows users to be able to 
connect to a multiuser Ubuntu server system. Users would be able connect 
at any time and would have access to a GUI desktop. You don't want these 
users to have their own login ID on the Ubuntu machine, but you do want 
each logged in user to see a different desktop rather than all of the 
users sharing access to a single VNC display.

My question is whether you require the users not to have logins on the 
Ubuntu server? Would it be acceptable to authenticate users against an 
Active Directory server?

I ask because I've been considering a similar requirement. I administer 
Windows networks but I forsee a requirement to manage migrating an 
arbitrarily large number of Windows users to Linux, possibly Ubuntu. 
What I would like to see is a facility for any of my users to connect to 
a Ubuntu server from their Windows machine, and get access to their own 
desktop complete with their own document storage. This might be the same 
document store that they access via their existing Windows systems. This 
isn't an immediate requirement so I would assume that Samba 4 would be 
involved.

The aim of the exercise would be to let users familiarise themselves 
with Linux at their own pace over an extended period.


-- 
bap at shrdlu.com