SSH and XDMCP

[Karthik S S]

We know that XDMCP Direct connections are insecure and SSH connections are encouraged. At times it is difficult when you need a Desktop Login Session which gives you the luxury of invoking multiple pseudo terminals with a single login and also you can start GUI programs. To make it secure I followed the below procedure. (With ReflectionX 10.x). Pl. let me know if this is correct. (I am aware that there is proper method for this using X11 port forwarding).


1. In the connection templates which is shown on the left hand side of the ReflectionX window, select ???sun.rxc Generic Sun xterm??? and on the right hand side select the connection method as ???OPENSSH???. Below that give the hostname to which you wish to connect and the user name. When prompted for confirming Authenticity click on yes and enter the password.

2. Once you get the xterm window on your desktop run the following commands,
. ./usr/dt/config/Xstartup
/usr/dt/bin/Xsession &

3. Now you will see that a Desktop Session is opened which is similar to the one you get with Normal XDMCP Direct host connection using ReflectionX. But this Desktop session is secured since it is invoked through a SSH Terminal.

4. However I found a bug with this Desktop session that when we click on the ???Exit??? or ???Logout??? button the session doesn???t really end but you will have to kill it manually using,
ps ???u username | grep ttsession
kill -9 pid_of_ttsession

Thanks and Regards,
Karthik S S

[Massimo Bianchi · Accepted solution]

Hi Karthik,
your procedure looks good.

I suggest another, that may help you.

Software needed: ReflectionX and putty.

- start reflection
- start putty, using the pagent agent and giving the passphrasse

- connect to the server using putty
(connection should be set up to forward the X connections)

- start the . ./usr/dt/config/Xstartup
/usr/dt/bin/Xsession &

as before.


HTH,
Massimo

when you finish the interactive session of dt, you will have to exit from the putty shell.

[Mark Poeschl_2]

Karthik -

Did you ever figure out how to get your session to terminate cleanly? I've tried switching from SecureCRT to PuTTY as suggested and I'm still have the same problem.

Any advice much appreciated!

[Karthik S S]

Hello Mark,

I am sorry but unfortunately I haven't figured out a method to solve this problem yet. Moreover whatever I have suggested here is just an workaround and not clean method to do it.

Thanks,
Karthik S S