My Notepad

LINUX server + windows GUI client

I have been thinking about using my laptop with window xp to access my Linux server for long time, becasue:
1,My laptop is old and slow, and I don't want to run some memory consuming applications like mySQL,apache,eclipse,whist my desktop was just built 2 months ago , really fast.
2, I don't want to use the CRT monitor of my Desktop, and don't have enough money to buy a LCD at this moment.So the LCD on my laptop seems like my only choice.
3,I want to use applications and packages in both windows and Linux without restarting and switching OS again and again.

Driven by these advantages, I finally got it work last night.What did i do is described below.

Server side:Fedora Core 3 linux
Client side: Windows XP with Cygwin

The configuation is based on XDMCP, you can find some good articles about it by google, one of them is,
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/XDMCP-HOWTO/
Server Side:
1, By default, the firewall on fedora linux is swithed on(you may choose off during the installation of linux though),therefore before any further configuration, we need to open the revelant ports for XDMCP in first place. XDMCP uses UDP port 177 and TCP port 6000.By default, the we only need UDP port 177, unless you also want XDMCP listen on TCP port for imcoming request.
Therefore we only open the UDP listening port by,
#iptables -I INPUT -p UDP --destination-port 177:177 -j ACCEPT
and then make sure the port has been opened by,
#iptables -L
if yes, don't forget to save the configuation by,
#iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables

2, Modify /etc/X11/xdm/Xaccess, uncomment this line,
# * #any host can get a login window

3,Modify /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config,
change "DisplayManager.requestPort: 0"
to "!DisplayManager.requestPort: 0"

4,Modify /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf. In [xdmcp] section,
change "Enable=false" to "Enable=true"

5,Restart X-windows by,
#init 3
#init 5

Client Side:
You need to correctly installed Cygwin on your windows system.
The installation program can be download from,
http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe
During the installation, make sure you have installed all the packages inside Graphics category.
If the ipaddress for you linux server is 192.168.1.2 for example,then in your cygwin bash,type,
xwin -query 192.168.1.2

Now you should be able to see the gdm login window from your windows.

Labels: cygwin, firewall, gdm, iptables, vnc, Xaccess, xdm, xdmcp