We have a service for our engineers called uLs (Useful Login Services). It started out as a VNC Gateway where users would start/stop/manage their VNC sessions on our internal login servers. It proved to be so successful that we started to have performance issues and had to add a VDI component. It is now a mission critical component to the engineering workflow.
When the VNC gateway was first implemented, it had the following layout: 1) In the first tab, users were provided with a list of existing VNC sessions and the ability to connect to or kill those VNC sessions. 2) In the second tab it provided a list of all login servers available, their location, the number of active VNC sessions running, and the 1minute, 5minute, and 15minute load. The users had the ability to start a new VNC session on any of the listed login servers. The beauty of this setup was that the load balancing was pushed to the customer/user. They had the ability to make an informed decision as to the best login server to connect to. The setup was simple too. It consisted of: 1) mySQL database 2) php based front end 3) python script on each login server to scan the login server to update the mySQL database. The biggest pitfall? Because they are shared login servers, every so often the engineers would behave badly and do something to bring the entire login server down. It was this reason that we moved towards complete isolation by means of VDI, but that's another story for another day. -----Original Message----- From: Dragseth Roy Einar [mailto:roy.drags...@uit.no] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 8:36 AM To: tigervnc-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Tigervnc-users] Open remote login service. Hi all. We're in the process of establishing an open remote desktop service for the users of our HPC-cluster. The plan is to provide an unrestricted vnc access to the login screen (using xdm) and require TLSnone as encryption for all connections. So, my question to the forum is: Do anyone have experience in running such a service in a production environment? Are there any pitfalls we should be aware of? Yes, I'm aware that we will be exposing the xdm login screen to the whole world, but we're currently allowing this for ssh login so in principle we're already having our jewels hanging out there... If we can pull this off we will be able to improve our service level by offering a simple linux desktop (XFCE) to our users without requiring anything from their side than a java-enabled web browser. In the test setup we have 16 login servers behind a NAT firewall and a simple web frontend that hands out the vncviewer jar and picks a random server among the 16. I can even run sophisticated 3D molecular modelling software from my dirt cheap android tablet (using the bVNC app). I must say that I'm really impressed with the quality of the TigerVNC software. So, any hints or comments is greatly appreciated. Regards, Roy. -- The Computer Center, University of Tromsø, N-9037 TROMSØ Norway. phone:+47 77 64 41 07, fax:+47 77 64 41 00 Roy Dragseth, Team Leader, High Performance Computing Direct call: +47 77 64 62 56. email: roy.drags...@uit.no ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 positioned as A LEADER in The Forrester Wave(TM): Endpoint Security, Q1 2013 and "remains a good choice" in the endpoint security space. For insight on selecting the right partner to tackle endpoint security challenges, access the full report. http://p.sf.net/sfu/symantec-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Tigervnc-users mailing list Tigervnc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tigervnc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 positioned as A LEADER in The Forrester Wave(TM): Endpoint Security, Q1 2013 and "remains a good choice" in the endpoint security space. For insight on selecting the right partner to tackle endpoint security challenges, access the full report. http://p.sf.net/sfu/symantec-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Tigervnc-users mailing list Tigervnc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tigervnc-users
