Install NX Server on Ubuntu Dapper Drake
Posted by Vince Wadhwani on Aug 23, 2006
May 2008: An update for Hardy Heron is located here.
I had no idea that NoMachine had updated their NX packages to 2.0. This is not news to some of you but it was to me. NX Server is a great package that provides quick remote access to different platforms from different platforms. (Note that NX Server is the same tech but is not the same as FreeNX which is the open source version.) I use NX to test GUI apps on my GNU/Linux servers from Mac OS X or other linux desktops. Version 1.5 for MacOS was giving a problem where the colors were messed up. Version 2.0 fixes that. Here's how to update your servers if you are having that problem:
As always, let's start off by making sure your server is up to date and that you have the required ssh server:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
Once your packages and updates, if any, have been downloaded and installed, visit these pages from NoMachine to grab their free NX Server packages. You will need 3 packages to install NX Server:
In each case there will be multiple choices. Make sure you download the version that says DEB else you'll end up with something that won't work as easily on Ubuntu.
Now that you have all the packages it's time to install. Open up your terminal and cd into the directory where you downloaded the above files. We're going to install them in the same order they were downloaded. In each case, make sure you use the name of your file as opposed to what I type here as you may have downloaded a more recent version than what I did.
sudo dpkg -i nxnode_2.0.0-100_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i nxclient_2.0.0-98_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i nxserver_2.0.0-76_i386.deb
You should now have the latest version of NX Server installed! I'm not sure if version 1.5 of the client will work with v2.0 of Server but why not just grab the latest client anyway?
Update: What do do in case of trouble.
If you have a problem of any kind, I would suggest removing your previous install completely and reinstalling from scratch. It's harmless and solved a problem I was having with a different server. Here's how I did it:
- sudo apt-get remove nxserver
- sudo apt-get remove nxnode
- sudo apt-get remove nxclient
- rm -rf /etc/nxserver
- rm -rf /usr/NX
- reboot (just in case..)
- sudo dpkg -i nxclient_2.0.0-98_i386.deb
- sudo dpkg -i nxnode_2.0.0-100_i386.deb
- sudo dpkg -i nxserver_2.0.0-76_i386.deb
- log in using v 2.0 of the client
I tried them today too. However I wasn’t so lucky. I got an error message after authentication. I found some redhat instructions which I thought I would use as a reference - they used the command –useradd to add a user already on the system.
Now after properly authenticating and getting messages to that effect, I get the message ‘The connection with the remote server was shut down. Please check the state of your network connection.’ That definitely shouldn’t happen across a local LAN.
Did you do anything extra to make your install work on Dapper?
Michael
I have updated the article to reflect what to do in case of problems.. I hope it helps you solve your problem!
vince
great article vince - thanks!
I’m a newbie with Linux, and am finally making progress getting NX up and running after following your advice. (I previously had v1.x installed and couldn’t authenticate from WinXP).
Now I can authenticate, but get an immediate error “Cannot run ‘startkde’. Please ensure that the requested application is in the system PATH and that you have appropriate credentials to execute it.”
I am logging on remotely using the same user id as I do locally. Is this an NX config, do you know? Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks!
craig
Hi Craig – When you launch the NX Client you’ll see an option for Configure. Clicking that will bring up a bunch of options but the ones you’ll most likely need to tweak are under Desktop. If you are connecting to Ubuntu then you’ll want to set that to Unix and Gnome.
The error you describe could be coming up because KDE is not actually installed on your desktop. The other option that you may need is under the advanced section – there is a checkbox there for ‘Enable SSL encryption of all traffic’ which you may need to check. Give that a shot and let me know if works out!
vince
Hi Vince, That’s sorted it. Thanks for the info & quick response. I just knew it’d be something simple. Cheers!
craig
The only problem is that the NX server from NoMachines only supports 1-2 users. It appears that if one user is logged in using NX, and another is logged in via ssh, a third user cannot log in using NX. NoMachines web site does not make it easy to see this limitation.
wilbur.harvey@spirentcom.com