Mac OS/X, Virtual PC 6, Oracle, and Cygwin/X - a tale

[Thomas Chadwick]

I read your email with great interest, and congratulate you on your 
perseverence and creativity in solving you VPN problem.  However, something 
occurred to me that you might want to consider.

I don't know a whole lot about Virtual PC, but if it really behaves as a 
stand-alone PC which co-exists on the same LAN as the Host PC (in this case 
the Mac), it should be entirely possible to set up a simple network route 
which routes TCP/IP traffic between the VPN endpoint (at the virtual PC 
side) over to the host Mac.  This would allow you to run Apple's X server 
instead of using Cygwin/X.  I'm willing to bet that VPN<->VirtualPC(virtual 
route)<->Max X-server is going to have better performance than 
VPN<->VirtualPC(Cygwin/X).

I think WinME and WinXP have routing built-in (called Internet Connection 
Sharing, or ICS).  Other flavors of Windows can be setup to route using 
3rd-party freeware.

>From: Dr Robert Young <rcyoung_ta_aliconsultants_tod_com>
>Reply-To: cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com
>To: cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com
>Subject: Mac OS/X, Virtual PC 6, Oracle, and Cygwin/X - a tale
>Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 12:49:58 -0400
>
>Well it is possible to get cygwin/X running on Virtual PC 6.1.1
>under Mac OS/X 10.3. There are some  tricks (simply to make it work,
>and to preserve your sanity......all Windows OSs are NOT created
>equal), so please  bear with me while I provide some "color" 
to my
>tale.....
>
>Now, you may ask why anyone would want to get this combo working on
>a Macintosh Powerbook G4 running OS/X 10.3.5? You can get X windows
>for OS/X directly.
>
>However, the world is populated by Windows machines, and as a
>database consultant, I have to access a multitude of client sites
>"remotely" since travel is not an option for a myriad of 
reasons.
>That means you enter the world of VPNs, which are in heavy use
>today, and getting more common by the minute. And the world of VPNs
>is dominated by Windows software ( NOT the VPN that you  get
>w/Windows direct from Microsoft, but the proprietary ones like
>Contivity, Cisco, Avaya, etc). Further VPN's do not "like" to 
be
>installed on the same machine as other VPN's ( these things do not
>"play well" together), so if you are working with 3-4-5 
customers
>and all the associated VPN software is from different vendors...well
>you can see the problem even if you don't toss in the point that I
>wanted to use my Mac that I had already paid for with hard earned,
>cold, unadulterated CASH.
>
>That was my original motivation for getting Virtual PC...so one
>could use the Windows VPN software to access the client sites, by
>defining "multiple" virtual PCs each with their own software
>installed for a specific customer, and do it all from (1)
>laptop..... AND IT WORKS!
>
>The next issue came from Oracle Corporation ( remember I make a
>living as a database consultant). On Unix (Sun, HP, AIX, Linux) the
>Oracle installer is the "Universal Installer"...ie it is  a 
java
>based & X-based. Character based telnet installs are not a real
>option anymore, much to the telecommuter's regret.
>
>That means I needed to come up with a means of running remote
>X-apps, through the client's VPN under Windows, but (in my case
>solely as a matter of personal preference) on a Macintosh OS/X
>system. There is now a version of Virtual PC for Windows letting you
>define multiple Win OS's on the same Intel platform ( I do, in fact,
>  have an older Compaq laptop ), but that means I have to by a newer
>Intel based laptop with more disk & memory & the Win Virtual PC
>software, and I didn't want to spend the $$$ there.
>
>Enough of the "tedious" background...but you do now have a 
good feel
>for the situation....
>
>
>I looked at several commercial Windows X servers (since I had to use
>Windows based VPNs) , and all would run under Virtual PC but in true
>Murphy's form, each had its own "problem" with the Oracle 
Universal
>Installer...fonts, missing buttons, etc. The glitches were well
>documented around the various Oracle www sites, but no real good
>solutions were available unless you could get a customer to change
>their X client setup "just for you" ( not a point you really 
want to
>ask a paying customer), upgrade their Oracle site-wide ( only a few
>hundred thousand dollars for that one), or  you could find V6 of the
>'X' server software (which was now on V12..lotsa luck on that one).
>Then I came across cygwin/X...
>
>Now I like free software in my business, it allows me to spend more
>money on my hobbies. So I downloaded cygwin/X onto two different
>Virtual PC setups...one is Windows 2000, the other is Windows 98SE.
>
>In the case of the basic cygwin, one has to increase the environment
>space for storing PATH information, etc. Once that was done, cygwin
>would come up under both Windows OSs, but it was much slower under
>Win 2000.
>
>Next I needed the X software running. For each Windows OS, I tried
>startxwin.bat & startxwin.sh. Sorry to say, these were a no go. The
>"X" showed up in the task bar, but no xterm was generated, and 
no X
>app would display. I should not say they never worked, startxwin.bat
>did work completely (1) time in 5 days of trial and error...but it
>never repeated.
>
>So then I went back an extra step.. to the cygwin admin window and
>entered....
>
>xinit -- -kb
>
>and IT WORKED! It worked on both OSs, but it was much ...much faster
>in Win 98SE.  This was with the VPN running ( my only immediate need
>is for the Avaya VPN, but I plan to test it with some of the others
>as well at a later date).
>
>After the xterm appeared, I started the Oracle Installer on the
>remote Sun system using
>
>ssh -Y username@host  /usr/openwin/bin/xterm
>
>and then from the Sun xterm, I could run the Installer ( I could
>have run it directly from ssh, but after the install you usually
>have to check some things, so I wanted a xterm window ready,
>willing, and able), and it displayed back on the Mac WITH NO VISIBLE
>PROBLEMS.
>
>So, cygwin/X now lets me run the Oracle software, displayed back to
>my existing Mac, without having to purchase either a commercial
>Windows X server ( around $300), or buy a another laptop
>($1,000-2,000).
>
>And that is the end of my tale....
>
>
>________________________________________________________
>
>Dr. Robert Young
>WWW: http://www.aliconsultants.com
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________
>
>Dr. Robert Young
>ALI Database Consultants
>1151 Williams Dr
>Aiken SC 29803
>USA
>
>WWW: http://www.aliconsultants.com
>Tele: 1-803-648-5931
>Toll free in US: 1-866-257-8970 Fax:1-803-641-0345
>Email: rcyoung@aliconsultants.com
>"Source of Rdb Controller, software for database analysis &
>performance tuning"
>

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® 
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963