[FreeNX-kNX] freenx and real X-session

[Mario Becroft]

Simon Gao <gao at schrodinger.com> writes:

>> 1. When locally on your machine, always run nxclient and login to a nx
>> session instead of directly using the X display on the machine. Then you
>> can login to this same nx session remotely.
>>
>
> Can you give more details on this? When you leave office, do you leave the NX 
> session running? 

If you use an nxagent session (what normally happens when you login with
nxclient), it starts an nxagent process on the server host which acts as
a virtual X server. While you are logged in to the nx session, you can
see this virtual X server on your local screen. If you "suspend" your
session (hit control-alt-t in the nx client and choose "suspend") then
your client quits, but the nxagent continues running and all your
programs continue to run. You can then go to the same or a different
machine, run the nxclient and login to your existing session, and all
your programs are still there.

So normally you would suspend the session when leaving the office. Thus
your nx client will close, but the session is still there, waiting for
you to login to it again from home, or next day from the office.

If instead of suspending the session, you terminated it, then you would
lose everything that is running on the session, and next time you login
you would get a fresh session.

If you happen to leave the nxclient running at work, it does not matter,
because when you login from at home, it will automatically close the
nxclient at work before logging you into the session.

Note that depending on how the freenx server is configured, the exact
procedure for logging into the existing session may vary. On our
network, I have it setup to automatically log users in to their existing
session if there is one (as this is easy to understand for the
users). You can also configure it to give you a list of existing
sessions, and you can choose the one you want to resume. This lets you
have multiple separate sessions running at once, each of which you can
login to separately.

I hope this explanation is clear.

-- 
Mario Becroft <mb at gem.win.co.nz>