[MLUG] Help with Remote X for Bengal.

["Christian M. Cepel" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I just wasted a night trying to figure out how to run an X app my wife 
has used before, which exists in bengal, and has successfully run for 
her CECS365 (I think) class using the SGIs in ebw.

Oh, I tried everything, different protocols, different operating systems 
(fedora core 2, win2k), with/without the cisco vpn installed and 
running, disabling all firewalls between here and there, etc, etc, etc.

Called the helpdesk and they tell me that X is not possible from Bengal, 
that it's not even installed, which confuses me as the following does exist:

[EMAIL:PROTECTED ~]$ ls /usr/X11R6/bin/
fslsfonts  fstobdf  mkfontdir  mkfontscale  xfs  xfsinfo

But anyways, the gent (he was actually very helpful) said that he thinks 
that the SGIs establish an SMB link with bengal and then run it within 
the X environment just like it was a file on the machine (I've no idea 
how the path variable and such are maintained across such a setup, but 
then I've never really messed w/ samba.

So... it would seem theoretically that I should be able to establish a 
similar SMB samba share from my Fedora Core 2 box to bengal and emulate 
the same behavior.... yes?

But......  I've absolutely no idea how to get started, or if it's even 
possible with the 3ft thick lead lined concrete walls they've put 
between computing resources on campus and the outside world.

If anyone's done it, or knows how to do it, could I get your help 
getting it done?  Conversely if anyone knows it's impossible, could you 
let me know so I don't waste any more time on the effort.

I have an additional rant on the subject.

I can understand that I cannot connect from windows to shared volumes 
using addressing such as \\mu-education-s1\DATA\  ... I've no idea what 
protocol that is... as it would constitute a security risk and therefore 
has been blocked on all routers outbound.

Meanwhile I can connect to and use the same share from MacOS 10.3 
(Panther) using afp://128.206.107.180/ (I think it also works using 
smb:// but I haven't tried in a while)...  Using the afp protocol, it 
actually DISABLES the ssh2 security to connect.  Why allow this, and not 
the other?

I'd like to be able to connect via win2k and linux to this volume.  I 
often need it to get work done and I'm flat on my back for 8 weeks while 
I heal from back surgery (using a projector on the floor, pointed at the 
ceiling is _really groovy!_)

Further, I don't like what the mac does to my FAT/FAT32/NTFS valid 
filenames... where I to just xfer using mac and then xfer to pc and use 
the files, I will engender all sorts of errors as files are not named 
what they should be named (think of using leachFTP to download an entire 
site of linked files and have it do it's magic s/%20/_/ voodoo).  I 
actually don't know if this problem is caused by the local mac, or by 
the way the fileserver displays and serves files when connected to 
certain filesystems/protocols.  It's so extreme that it even mangles 
valid MacOS X filenames to make them valid to Mac Classic standards (31 
char length, etc)

Anyways.  Thanks for any help/advice given.

Here begins the real RANT.


I really don't understand how an organization that WE as students and 
staff have PAID a MAJOR portion of it's funding, which is supposed to be 
a SERVICE to those who pay for it can dictate policy and disable 
usability of resources.  It's a SERVICE, and that service is to provide 
usability with a goal to maximize productivity.

I strongly object (regardless of my knowledge of security risks) to this 
kind of lockdown behavior, and further to the 'support policy' of End Of 
Lifeing certain technologies.  I have yet to see a legitimate excuse for 
their EOLing Windows NT or win98 just to reduce the complexity of their 
support base.  These operating systems have not become security risks 
due to M$ EOLing them, they have just become static, with no future 
upgrades of product.  M$ will still release security patches as 
vulnerabilities are found. 

Specifically, I think of two projects my wife has worked on... 
hypothetically lets say that they use data acquisition cards that are 
supported by the manufacturer ONLY under WinNt4spWhatever.  The drivers 
to interface with the card, and the software to make use of the card or 
controller are only available for WinNT, and development of ports to a 
different operating system are 100% unfeasible, as well as cost and time 
prohibitive.  Let's also say that things are working GREAT under NT and 
there's no reason to change.

Lets also consider that even if it were possible, the project would be 
responsible for the rather large cost in time and funds of upgrading 
their machine and migrating all the functionality and files to the new 
system.  A system that has existed through dozens of RAs over several 
years, and may or may not have undocumented contents that would be 
missed if they were not preserved through the migration.  Lets say also 
that perhaps doing such a migration would render their entire tape 
archiving system useless, and all the data stored unusable.  Lets add 
the cost in time and loss of productivity as the learning curve 
associated with such a migration is attacked by the people who need to 
utilize the system.   Lets also analyze the cost of something being 
irreparably lost or damaged because what was working was messed with 
rather than leaving well enough alone... It happens, despite our best 
efforts... it's happened to every single one of you that has messed with 
hardware/os/software for any length of time...

Well.... the obvious response would be, "don't upgrade the system".  
there's no reason to.  It's working great, and there's no reason to 
expect it to do otherwise as long as good maintenance and administration 
standards are maintained...

Ok... now add to this scenario the advent of LOTS of VERY Malicious 
viri, which can easily be guarded against if Nav7.6 is installed on said 
machine.

Now.. Go to only.  Go to SAM/....   It's not there.  It used to be 
there, it was there till quite recently... But now it's gone.  UMC still 
has sitelicense for it and can continue distributing, installing and 
utilizing it, but it's not there.   Why?  It's presence represented 
NOTHING in the was of resources.  It wasn't hurting anybody.  There was 
no harm in leaving it available, and quite a lot of benefit to be 
gained.   My guess... as all this is supposition...  They took it down 
in conjunction with their decision to EOL support for NT.

Now they can go into your office like Nazis and say, "Your port has been 
shut off, you are infected and are propagating a virus that is malicious 
and is involved in illegal DDOS attacks".  You cannot regain usefulness 
of your networked computer until you've remedied the situation... 
only... you can't.  The solution is there, but they refuse to provide 
it...  My black helicopter conspiracy theorist tendencies lead me to 
believe that they WANT this scenario to occur to FORCE users to upgrade 
to the currently supported OS despite the costs the user assumes in loss 
of functionality, productivity and time.  They care nothing.  My theory 
is that they removed it not because it constituted any consumption of 
resources, but because it furthers their adjenda of limiting and 
simplifying the scope of the services they have to provide.

Ironically, this scenario kindof sort of occurred.  I was asked to look 
at their data acquisition machine when it started behaving strangely.  
As I can refuse her nothing, I did so.  I found it unprotected from viri 
and riddled with such.  Solution, spend 20 minutes installing and 
configuring the software that should have been there in the first 
place.... but...

go to only... go to sam.... it's not there.  Call the helpdesk.... get a 
snotty answer about how the OS is not supported and that I should 
upgrade, yadda yadda yadda (btw.. I think this crap is VERY HIGHLY 
IRRESPONSIBLE and IATS should be held responsible for damages incurred).

We didn't bother to investigate upgrading.... why should we.  Even if 
it's possible, there's no reason to risk the project data, procedures, 
resources in an upgrade.   I had a copy of 7.6 archived.... brought it 
in the next day, installed it and the machine is back and working in 
essentially 20 minutes instead of several days.

I have another example of what I consider to be almost CRIMINAL 
NEGLIGENCE on the part of an Lab administrator under whom I worked who I 
will not name.  I'm still furious about this and  probably always will 
be.  The person is probably monitoring this list still, and I could care 
less what they think of me.   I had to tolerate this rubbish when they 
were here, and MINIMIZE the damage they did and constraints they placed 
on my own project, and in many cases circumvent their strangle hold on 
things to get the real assistance I required, but I do so no longer.   
That being said, him/her/they are really great people, very 
knowledgeable, and very helpful, but that couples poorly with their 
fascist policies, invasive practices and productivity destroying 
time&money wasting policies.

Here's the situation....  several projects have been ongoing in the lab, 
some using MILLIONS of dollars in grant monies for YEARS.  Project 
members have come and gone with the years and progress has moved forward 
steadily.  The machines have been migrated from OS to OS as needed and 
the data maintained by the project head/owner with the help of the 
EXTREMELY AWESOME IT department under which it resides.  Now... for one 
reason or another, the lab itself has it's own separate IT staff that 
are constantly at loggerheads with the EXTREMELY AWESOME IT department, 
and insists on being the only resource such projects are allowed to utilize.

The event...  M$ releases its first EOL announcement for Win98se and the 
entire world PANICS.  EVERYBODY misreads it to ignore that security 
concerns will likely still be addressed.  (Soon after, the EOL was 
postponed to a later date due to huge pressures against M$.)  Within a 
week of this event, a mail is sent out to all citizens in the lab 
announcing the EOL, vaguely outlining the ramifications, citing IATS' 
decision to EOL Win98, and stating that all the machines in the lab WILL 
be forcibly upgraded to the dreaded resource hog XPpro, with no mention 
made of considerations being made for any of the following.
a) the ability for the project to actually function and continue and 
operate on the new platform.
b) the ability of the hardware to function normally under win98, but 
GRIND TO A HALT under XP (it actually turns out, and I give them credit 
for it, later go around to all the machines and upgrade whatever they 
could to increase hardware performance under XP.

The announcement is primarily to the project members, and only by lucky 
accident to the actual project heads who generally depend on the IT unit 
to make sensible decisions which do not need their attention.

Who are the project members.  Semi-IT-literate users (not power users), 
grad students in SISLT and other COE, who have a basic working knowledge 
of computers, and moreover may only have been associated with the 
project for a fraction of the time the project has been in existence.  
They have no idea of the full scope, data, resources, requirements of 
the project they are working on, or even of the history of the machine 
they are working on, and what data is stored there.

The email says, "It's got to be done", "You are responsible for backing 
up your data", "If something is lost we're not responsible", "we will be 
reformatting the HD and installing the new OS" (format COMPLETELY 
unnecessary... desirable yes, but by no means a requirement for 
successful migration... "Please notify us as soon as your data is backed 
up and we will show up and destroy your workstation and put it back 
together again."

I'M SO FURIOUS RIGHT NOW JUST REMEMBERING THIS THAT I CAN HARDLY STRING 
WORDS INTO A SENTENCE.

I learned after the fact that one of the members of my project, by no 
fault of her own, and not knowing she was putting the wheels in motion 
for action that would have been VERY damaging to our project, backed up 
her personal files and then mailed as instructed and they scheduled her 
Migration.   FOLKS, THERE'S an 80gb HARDDRIVE IN THERE.  Her files, even 
for the project were infinitesimal compared to the total data contents 
of the drive.  The software we used to develop, at that time was not 
available for XP.  That was MY machine.  I researched and bought the 
guts with project monies.  It belonged to the project, and I was it's 
maintainer.  I built it, I choose the partition scheme and the 
filesystems.  I lovingly maintained it and did my best to keep them away 
from it.  I lacked at that time a way to archive and protect all of the 
data on that machine in any meaningful way.   And with one innocent 
email, it was all gone.... Almost...

Fortunately, I got wind of it ahead of time, got her off the schedule, 
and the machine out of danger.  Through the most infuriating diplomatic 
channels we outlined our objections in simple english HOW UTTERLY STUPID 
AND IRRESPONSIBLE AND UNJUSTIFIED this action was, we halted the attack 
upon our project (and got the other project heads involved in what 
should have been their decision, and their decision ONLY (not the 10.60 
an hour GA who is worrying about their dissertation).  We made a case 
for and won the _privilege_ *gag* to migrate our machines to Win2k and 
for me to do the migrating, preserving what needed to be preserved.

To this day it was kept relatively quiet, and I don't know if any 
projects that were hit before objections were raised actually suffered 
from the events.

We've kept all our resources and the project is going great guns. 

The nighmare is over and our IT needs are again handled by the 
department that was supposed to be responsible for them all along.  
Ironically, when I took this whole fiasco (before it had been mitigated) 
to the proper IT department, they sympathised and agreed with all of our 
objections, anger, viscitude, etc, but mourned the fact that their hands 
are tied.  That Department which I greatly respect and which we are back 
under today has a history (for the 5 years I've worked with them ) and 
I'm certain, even longer of doing WHATERVER it takes to INCREASE 
productivity and add benefit to all those who have the privilege of 
being aided by them, in complete contrast to the majority of my 
experiences with IATS, and especially the unnamed IT dept.  Examples of 
loss of perspective of many IT departments who exist to SERVE and 
BENEFIT those who it is there to SERVE and BENEFIT, and in many cases 
pay for that service.






-- 
||

Christian Marcus Cepel           | And the wrens have returned &
EMAIL:PROTECTED icq:12384980 | are nesting; In the hollow of
371 Crown Point, Columbia, MO    | that oak where his heart once
65203-2202 573.999.2370          | had been; And he lifts up his
Computer Support Specialist, Sr. | arms in a blessing; For being
University of Missouri-Columbia  | born again. --Rich Mullins

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