Insecure boxes at computer lab?

[gmoreno]

Where can I find out more info on dumb x terminals?

[Compunuts]

That's when he uses ssh or vnc as mentioned above, or has some kind of physical bypass of the lock.

And you would think supporting another piece of software is an easier solution? Do you know how much this will impact on companies thousands of boxes? Either you maintain thousands of log ons or rick having all the boxes be able to control by hackers if the account is compromised some how .... Not a good solution..

<edited> It appears that some of the text that I've entered did not show up ... so I took them out ... and I'm not going to retype them and I don't remember what I typed.

[tolstoy]

The education and governmental work environment is quiet different than the commerce companies' need.

Agreed. I'm working at a school right now and having traditional desktops in our library and labs was a royal pain in the ass (weekly imaging, security planning, viruses galore, disks jammed in sideways and backwards, candy wrappers in the cdrom trays). It was a nightmare to manage. However, many of our staff members were migrated to terminals as well and can now only launch a given number of specified apps (they don't even have full desktops, which they hate. --take away a users right to change their screen saver and they scream bloddy murder!). You're right about network downtime though. When a server drops, all hell breaks loose (I hear about fifty simultaneous groans). *But that's the trade-off. I'd sooner manage one server than 50 desktops. But when that server hiccups, everyone feels it.

[ph34r]

gmoreno - These should get you started with a X terminal. I've made a few at work here out of P75s with 8mb ram and 350mb disks using Slackware 8. Most of the disk space is for TONS of fonts that I got off a windows machine, but you could even do it with a diskless machine or just a floppy.

http://www.menet.umn.edu/~kaszeta/un...nal/index.html

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/XDM-Xterm/

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplan...orials/3165/1/

[Compunuts]

Ok, now I'm curious as to why Network, a company I once worked for, was switching their terminals for computers. Even with PC's, we had to use a telnet-like program to access the server in order to do anything. When the server went down, we still did nothing. So why the switch to PC's? I can't see any benefit they brought to the company except that we didn't have to type on burned screens anymore.

Well, first of all, workers' tasks are getting complex with todays' working environment.

There used to be that workers are strickly assigned to one tasks ( such as data entry, warehouse, work order creation ) on mainframes or midrange servers. All we used was AS400 with terminal emulator and that was it. No PCs. Just dumb terminals ( Altos VT100s ).

But now that we are out of that doing-only-one-job era. Workers are asssigned to many stuff with many needs.

1. Take Mail for example. It's a bitch to set up mail on AS400 ( although it's possible ).
2. Workers need research tools such as Internet to do their job. I used to be a Buyer which I need to search through the web to get what I needed to buy and who are selling with what price and what not.
3. Workers need word processing as well as Office programs. When my counterpart from other companies need to send me some stuff that they want me to look at, I need to have the software what they have. That will include PDF as well as some CAD viewing programs.
4. ASP ( Application Service Provider ) was such a bullshits tech they have ever implemented. Unless you have fully switched high speed network, it will be a nightmare to maintain a network which is solely remote application method expecially your needs are complex. All I need is to process some work order on the database, that was easy enough.

So it depends on your need. Not one solution fits all.

[Compunuts]

Agreed. I'm working at a school right now and having traditional desktops in our library and labs was a royal pain in the ass (weekly imaging, security planning, viruses galore, disks jammed in sideways and backwards, candy wrappers in the cdrom trays). It was a nightmare to manage.

Oh yeah ... School's labs are one crazy place to maintian and that's where terminals will make sense. I mean I've seen people ( mind you, they are all adults ) trying to jam floppy disks to the tape drives. Some will open up anything they see in their mail boxes be it trojan or not.

Companies are a little different though.. They usually have more contol over resources. They are more professional minded ( except some people ). You can usually yell at them for what they do not do and follow your procedure. You can give them hard time via their boss. Take away their rights and stuff...... In this sense, schools are a nightmare to manage....

IIRC, it's possible to block single user mode by putting a password, but I'm not too sure of that (I'll check it out though).

definitely possible cuz that's how it is on LFS systems (if u use the lfs bootscripts that is...)

doesn't work with just typing a random password, has to be the right root password, otherwise... no single user level for u

[kenshi]

Well, first of all, workers' tasks are getting complex with todays' working environment.

There used to be that workers are strickly assigned to one tasks ( such as data entry, warehouse, work order creation ) on mainframes or midrange servers. All we used was AS400 with terminal emulator and that was it. No PCs. Just dumb terminals ( Altos VT100s ).

I understand that for general jobs. But at network, we were only supposed to use a telnet-like app to hook up with the mainframe. I remember now, though, why they were switching. I heard from someone that they were getting ready to teach everyone prepaid, which means you'd have to have internet access. It makes me wonder what's up at that company now.