launching a remote webbrowser with cygwin

[Rasjid Wilcox]

> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Chris Bullock wrote:
> > This is my first post to cygwin and I would like to say, great product.
> >
> > Background:
> > With all the recent Microsoft virii and code leaks we are slowly blocking
> > Windows based pcs from accessing the Internet.  What we are doing is
> > placing a box running a Linux terminal server client beside every Windows
> > box that needs to access the Internet.  This is beginning to get very
> > cumbersome and a huge headache.

Putting a Linux box beside each Windows workstation is completely unnecessary.

> > What I desire.  I wish to load a very small portion of Cygwin on each
> > Windows box.  When the user clicks the icon it would then connect to the
> > Linux Terminal Server and launch $browser of choice.  First off is this
> > possible?

Yes, quite possible.

> > and if so can someone point me on how to make this happen.  I
> > do not want to have to run the entire terminal client.  Currently, what
> > we have tested is from the cygwin prompt we run 'X --query $LTSP:1' but
> > this gives us the entire terminal server and all I want the users to do
> > is access a webbrowser.

You just need to configure the LTSP box to only lauch a browser upon login, 
rather than a full desktop environment.  The browser started could be 
configured on a per user basis, or be uniform for everyone depending on how 
you want things.   This is a Linux or LTSP setup and configuration issue and 
not a Cygwin-XFree issue at all.  Email your local Linux User Group or post 
on the LTSP mail list for help on that one.

Also, you don't need to start a Cygwin XDMCP session from a cygwin shell  
prompt.  It would be easier for your users if you just set up a windows 
shortcut to the Xwin.exe executable with the appropriate command line 
options.  (ie, the --query option as given above.)

It is possible to set things up so that which browser is chosen is configured 
on the Windows box, but you would probably need to introduce ssh into the 
setup to do this.  Without knowing anything about your setup I would probably 
recommend sticking with XDMCP, since that is what the LTSP system is designed 
for.  In which case configuration of which browser is used has to happen 
server side.

Cheers,

Rasjid.

-- 
Rasjid Wilcox
Canberra, Australia (UTC +11 hrs)
http://www.openminddev.net