HOWTO Configure NX Server on RHEL5 / CentOS 5
From Consultancy.EdVoncken.NET
NoMachine offers the free NX Server, a low-bandwidth X server. Documentation is sorely lacking, but the product works fine for my needs.
Contents |
Installation
Download and install the client, node and server packages on your system:
rpm -Uvh nxclient-3.3.0-6.x86_64.rpm nxnode-3.3.0-17.x86_64.rpm nxserver-3.3.0-22.x86_64.rpm
System Configuration
The default configuration, created by the RPM installation, should be sufficient in most scenarios.
User Configuration
Access through an SSH gateway host
If a firewall prevents direct access to your destination host, use SSH tunnels to forward the traffic from the bastion host to the destination hosts (server1 and server2 here):
ssh -L 2122:server1.example.local:22 -L 2222:server2.example.local:22 ed@bastion.example.local
This command does the following:
- Log on to bastion.example.local as user ed
- Forward TCP port 2122 on localhost to port 22 on server1.example.local
- Forward TCP port 2222 on localhost to port 22 on server2.example.local
In the NX Connection Wizard, create a new session for server1.example.local with server address localhost, port 2122. Create another session for server2.example.local with server address localhost, port 2222.
If you start the NX Client, it will connect to the appropriate SSH tunnel endpoint on localhost. The SSH tunnel on the bastion host will forward the traffic to the real server, behind the firewall.
or the NX Client will be unable to connect. This is a limitation of the NX Client.
Issues
SSH Public-Key Authentication
By default, the NX Client will ask you for username and password. If you have configured your SSH server to reject password-based authentication, you cannot open a connection. I have not yet found a proper workaround.
Navigation
- HOWTO Configure remote desktop sessions on Linux
- HOWTO Configure VNC Server on RHEL5 / CentOS 5
- HOWTO Configure NX Server on RHEL5 / CentOS 5