NX Server Manager
Installation and Configuration Guide

The NX Server Manager package, named nxmanager, includes:

• The nxmanager binary written in Perl.
• The NX Server Manager front-end.
• A configuration file, manager.conf, to be included in the Web Server configuration file for deploying the application on the Web.
• A configuration file, manager.cfg, to be updated in order to fit the installation environment.

NX Server Manager is installed in the /usr/NX location, where:

• Binary, nxmanager, is placed in the /usr/NX/bin directory.
• The front-end set of images, templates and stylesheets is stored in the /usr/NX/share/htdocs/nxmanager/ directory.
• The configuration files, manager.conf and manager.cfg are available in the /usr/NX/etc/ directory.

The following NX Server Manager packages are available:

• RPM, DEB i386/AMD64 for Linux
• Compressed TAR i386/AMD64 for Linux
• SPARC.GZ for Solaris SPARC

Before going ahead with the installation of NX Server Manager, please be sure you have installed a Web Server on your NX Server Manager host machine. Apache HTTP Server is suggested.

Installation environment

Operating System

• Linux kernel 2.2/2.4/2.6 (i386 or AMD/64) for SuSE, RedHat, Mandriva, Debian and a number of other Linux distributions
• SunOS kernel 5.8/5.9/5.10 (SPARC) for Solaris 8, 9 and 10.

Hardware requirements

• 400 MHz processor
• 128 MB RAM
• 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive
• Network connection (either a LAN, or Internet link: dial-up (minimum 33.6 Kbps modem), broadband, cable, DSL, etc...)

Software requirements

• Apache HTTP Server 1.3.x/2.x or a compatible Web server
• The SSH server daemon (SSHD)
• NX Client
• NX Node
• NX Server

End-user environment

• Open an xterm terminal or similar, move to the directory where you have downloaded the package from the NoMachine Web site.
• Install the package using the rpm utility:

  # sudo rpm -ivh nxmanager-X.Y.Z-W.i386.rpm

  Alternatively you can use the graphical package manager provided by your Linux distribution.

• Open an xterm terminal or similar, make a backup of your current NX installation and protect sensitive information that may be present inside the TAR archive by making the backup readable only by the 'root' user:

# sudo tar cvzf /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz /usr/NX
# sudo chmod 0600 /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz


• Move to the directory where you have downloaded the package from the NoMachine Web site and run:

  # sudo rpm -Uvh nxmanager-X.Y.Z-W.i386.rpm

• Open an xterm terminal or similar and run:

  # sudo rpm -e nxmanager

• Move to the directory where you have downloaded the package from the NoMachine Web site and run:

  # sudo rpm -Uvh nxmanager-X.Y.Z-W.i386.rpm

• Open an xterm terminal or similar, move to the directory where you have downloaded the package from the NoMachine Web site.
• Install the package using the dpkg utility:

  # sudo dpkg -i nxmanager_X.Y.Z-W_i386.deb

• Open an xterm terminal or similar, make a backup of your current NX installation and protect sensitive information that may be present inside the TAR archive by making the backup readable only by the 'root' user:

  # sudo tar cvzf /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz /usr/NX
  # sudo chmod 0600 /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz

• Move to the directory where you have downloaded the package from the NoMachine Web site and run:

  # sudo dpkg -i nxmanager_X.Y.Z-W_i386.deb

  The dpkg utility will automatically unsinstall the old version present on the system and install the new one.

• Open an xterm terminal or similar and uninstall the package using the dpkg utility:

  # sudo dpkg -r nxmanager

• Open an xterm terminal or similar. You should have downloaded the tar.gz package to the /usr directory. If not, move the package to the /usr directory:

  # sudo mv nxmanager-X.Y.Z-W.i386.tar.gz /usr
  # cd /usr

• Extract the archive:

  # sudo tar xvzf nxmanager-X.Y.Z-W.i386.tar.gz

• And install NX Server Manager:

  # sudo /usr/NX/bin/nxmanager --install

• Open an xterm or similar, make a backup of your current NX installation and protect sensitive information that may be present inside the TAR archive by making the backup readable only by the 'root' user:

  # sudo tar cvzf /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz /usr/NX
  # sudo chmod 0600 /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz

• Ensure that the downloaded package is in the /usr directory and extract the archive:

  # sudo tar xvzf nxmanager-X.Y.Z-W.i386.tar.gz

  This operation will preserve the previous NX Server Manager configuration file.

• Set proper ownership and permissions on the NX Server Manager back-end:
  
  # sudo /usr/NX/bin/nxmanager --update

• Open an xterm or similar and remove the installation directory:

  # sudo rm -rf /usr/NX

• Open a terminal and move to the directory where you have downloaded the package from the NoMachine Web site.
• Expand the package archive and install it using the pkgadd utility:

  # sudo gunzip nxmanager-X.Y.Z-WW.sparc.gz
  # sudo pkgadd -d nxmanager-X.Y.Z-WW.sparc

• Open a terminal, make a backup of your current NX installation and protect sensitive information that may be present inside the TAR archive by making the backup readable only by the 'root' user:

  # sudo gtar cvzf /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz /usr/NX
  # sudo chmod 0600 /root/nx-BACKUP.tar.gz

• Then remove the previous installation, otherwise the installation will fail because only a single instance of the package is supported at one time on the same system:

  # sudo pkgrm NXmanager

• Expand the package archive and install it using the pkg utility:

  # sudo gunzip nxmanager-X.Y.Z-WW.sparc.gz
  # sudo pkgadd -d nxmanager-X.Y.Z-WW.sparc

• Open a terminal and remove the NX Server Manager installation using the pkgrm utility:

  # sudo pkgrm NXmanager

In order to have your NX Server Manager fully operative you need to ensure that:

• You have configured the Web Server to run NX Server Manager.
• You have configured NX Server Manager to fit your environment.
• You have set the proper permissions for the NX Server Manager back-end.

IMPORTANT

The NX Server Manager package provides a configuration file, namely /usr/NX/etc/manager.conf, containing the directives for the Web Server required to run the application. This file should be included in the Web Server configuration file. In the case of Apache Web Server, the configuration file is usually the httpd.conf file. It can be updated by adding the following directive before the "Global Environment" section:

Include /usr/NX/etc/manager.conf

Then restart your Web Server.

Some possible locations for the Apache configuration file, depending on the Operating System and Apache Web Server version, are:

• Fedora release 8, Apache/2.2.8 /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
• SuSE Linux 9.1, Apache/2.0.49 /etc/apache2/default-server.conf
• SUSE LINUX 10.1, Apache/2.2.0 /etc/apache2/default-server.conf
• Solaris Sparc 10, Apache/1.3.41 /etc/apache/httpd.conf

The manager.conf file provides the following directives:

Alias /nxmanager/ "/usr/NX/share/htdocs/nxmanager/"
ScriptAlias "/nxmanager" "/usr/NX/bin/nxmanager"

<Directory "/usr/NX/">
  AllowOverride None
  Options None
  Order allow,deny
### ADDRESS RESTRICTIONS START ###
  Allow from all
### ADDRESS RESTRICTIONS STOP ###
</Directory>

IMPORTANT

Please don't modify the comments related to the Address Restrictions. These are required to configure the restrictions via Web through the NX Server Manager application.

The NX Server Manager package provides a configuration file, namely /usr/NX/etc/manager.cfg, containing the configuration variables needed by the Manager to work properly in the hosting environment. Among them, there are defined username and group for the Web Server (namely Apache) user, which are necessary to set correct permissions for files constituting the NX Server Manager back-end.

In particular, you should ensure that the following keys are set according to the configuration of the Web Server on your system:

#
# Specify user name of Apache owner.
#
ApacheUname = "nobody"

#
# Specify group name of Apache owner.
#
ApacheGname = "nogroup"

#
# Specify the Apache reload command.
#
ApacheHTTPDReloadCommand = "/etc/init.d/apache2 graceful"

Based on values set in the manager.cfg file for the Web Server user, the NX Server Manager update procedure sets proper ownership and permissions on the NX Server Manager back-end. This procedure can be executed by running:

NX Server Manager is a Web application based on perl CGI. You can run it by pointing your browser to the proper URL according to the CGI directory you have specified in the configuration file of your Web Server:

This section is intended for the NX Server Manager Web administrator.

The administrative interface of the NX Server Manager allows you to:

• Create Web accounts to access the NX Server Manager Web application with or without privileges for administering the NX Server Manager Web application.
• Apply restrictions to allow only a set of IP Addresses to access NX Server Manager.

The NX Server Manager application is provided with a default Web administrator user. You can enter the application the first time by using the following default credentials

Username: nxmanager
Password: nxmanager

IMPORTANT

If you want to perform administrative operations on an NX Server, you need to log-in to the server by using an account which such privileges. As an alternative, you may log-in to NX Server with a non-administrative account and manage your own items, for example you could monitor or terminate your sessions and change your password.

Open an xterm or similar on your NX Server host machine and execute the nxserver --useradd command with the --administrator option.

To create a new system account with administrative privileges:

# /usr/NX/bin/nxserver --useradd USERNAME --system --administrator

To give administrative privileges to an existing account:

If your NX Server supports profiles, you can specify rules via NX Server Manager to set profiles on a per-system and/or on a per-user basis. When rules are set for the whole system, they apply to all user logins to NX Server. In the case of profiles set on a per-user basis, a different set of rules may be defined for each user.

The 'System Profile' section in the NX Server Manager interface allows for the definition of rules to be applied to the whole system.

The number of rules that can be set to create a profile can be grouped in the following classes:

• Session - to allow/forbid the starting of a specific type of session (unix-kde, unix-gnome etc...)
• Service - to allow/forbid to run services such as media, printing and audio.
• Feature - to control features such as copy&paste or available bandwidth.
• Node - to allow/forbid the starting of sessions on a specific node.
• Startup script - to specify path of X window system startup script.

IMPORTANT

When a rule explicitly allows a class type, it implicitly forbids all the other types belonging to this class and vice-versa. That's to say, if you explicitly allow unix-kde sessions, you are forbidding all the other session types. If you forbid unix-kde sessions, you are allowing all the other session types. You can allow or forbid as many class types as you like.

Rules to allow/forbid access to node(s) can be set only when the multi-node support is enabled and the node(s) is added to the NX Node DB.

In order to produce statistics via NX Server Manager, you need to start the nxsensor daemon on the NX Node host and the nxstat daemon on the NX Server host. The nxsensor daemon is in charge of producing data that is then elaborated by nxstat and provided to the Manager. To start nxsensor, you need firstly to edit the node configuration file on the NX Node host. Enable the EnableSensor key in the node.cfg file and ensure that values set for the following keys do fit your environment:

StatisticsHost = "127.0.0.1"
The hostname or IP address where the nxstat daemon, in charge of collecting and elaborating data provided by nxsensor, will be assumed to be running.

NodeSensorPort = "19250"
The port where the NX server will contact nxsensor daemon to collect the statistics data. The key is also used by nxsensor to know the network interface where it will listen for incoming connections.

The commands to handle the nxsensor daemon, in charge of producing data related to the node host, are:

nxnode --sensor start
nxnode --sensor restart
nxnode --sensor stop

In order to activate the nxstat daemon, edit the server configuration file available in the default installation at /usr/NX/etc/server.cfg to activate the EnableStatistics key and configure the following key to fit your environment:

ServerSensorPort = "19250"
Specify the port where the server will contact the nxsensor daemon to collect the statistics.

The commands to handle the nxstat daemon, in charge of elaborating the data provided by the nxsensor daemon running on the node host, are:

The NX Server Configuration keys are grouped into the following categories:

General
To set general behaviour of the NX Server, as for example the authentication method to be used (System or NX authentication), enabling/disabling of advanced capabilities (multi-node support, profiles ...) and so on.

Session
To define settings specific for session management, such as log level, maximum number of concurrent sessions, desktop sharing and session shadowing behaviour and so on.

Custom scripts
To specify path to the scripts to be executed upon NX Server events such as: before user login, after user login, before session start-up, after session start-up etc...

Guest
To specify settings for the automatic creation of guest accounts. Note that these settings can be applied only if the server supports provision of guest users.