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it 's a long line in the buglist but i hope i find help here at superuser.com. I use FreeNx to administer the headless (by means there is no CRT-Monitor attached) server which runs like a charm. But there are some tasks (the little gnome apps user-admin or time-admin have a special security-feature implemented) which can't be done remotely. Are there any solutions?

PS: In a little test with the new Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 Version, this issue remains unchanged.

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    I'm not quite sure what exactly you want to do. "Some tasks" What tasks are you referring to? Also, why are you using FreeNX to administer a headless server? FreeNX was supposed to be a replacement for VNC, which is used to remotely use an X session. If it is a headless server, you should be using ssh.
    – Devon
    Jan 19, 2010 at 0:27
  • Agreed. SSH is the way to go. Plenty of good tutorials on the net.
    – Iain
    Jan 19, 2010 at 1:00
  • Headless means not: without a GUI. FreeNX establishes the connection thru ssh - To be precise concerning 'some tasks': user-administration or as a side effect 'time-admin', these job's need to unlock the gui.
    – Ice
    Jan 19, 2010 at 20:17

3 Answers 3

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My recommendation would be to check out Webmin (http://www.webmin.com/index.html), or similar, rather than install an X-server, which will take up unnecessary system resources. It's not a GUI per-se but a web interface for common tasks that need to be performed on servers, and it can save administrators a lot of time if you don't know the correct shell command.

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what do you mean by "GUI locked"?

If you mean that X11 is not starting, that is because it is not meant to run without hardware to display on. If you really want to be running X without a physical display, then you want XVFB.

On a headless server, IMHO it is pointless to be running X11. If you want to run programs on that server that rely on a GUI, you use ssh -X (much better than -Y) to have it display on your own X11 session.

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  • time-admin, I find out after some googling, is a gnome tool. Yes, you need a display to run gnome. Gnome is designed for desktop usage. If you have a headless server, you are probably better off not using desktop software to administrate it. Anyway, if you really want to use gnome to control your headless server, run XVFB, then run gnome-session with XVFB as the display, and you will get your standard ubuntu interface accessible via VNC or whatever. I recommend learning to use the command line and edit config files if you want to run a Linux server, though. Feb 10, 2010 at 18:55
  • @Justin: Yes - i mentioned ubuntu in the question. i don't know XVFB and first ahve to google about it...
    – Ice
    Feb 10, 2010 at 20:31
  • Ok, i XVFB is a x-server without the mass like gnome but this don't help at this special issue.
    – Ice
    Feb 10, 2010 at 20:35
  • No. Gnome needs an X server in order to run. You can run gnome on the remote host's X11, or you can run gnome on the server's XVFB X11 server, or you can figure out how to not use gnome. I recommend not using gnome, but Xvfb is a good second choice. Feb 10, 2010 at 21:16
  • @Justin: to run Gnome/GDM/etc on a headless server, Xvnc may be a better choice than Xvfb. Feb 14, 2010 at 17:30
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it's me again,

i give SSH a try with something like: ssh -Y -l Loginname -p 22 servername/IP application

With this i should get the GUI for e.g. time-admin

ssh -Y -l ice -p 22 192.168.134.1 time-admin

We will see if the GUI is locked and i can unlock it with entering my password...

Ice

Edit: The Time-Admin Window shows some settings, but all Buttons are disabled and so also the Button for 'unlocking' the Elements in the sense of security. To 'unlock' this GUI, you have to enter your Password...

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