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LTSP Enhancements - Web Configuration Tool



Overview

Our Web Based Configuration Program allows you to See a list of all configured workstations, Edit any of the workstations or the Default settings, Copy an existing workstation and use it to create a new workstation, or Delete any of the configured workstations, including the Default settings.  In the current version (1.0) if there are no existing entries (workstations or Default) you will not be able to create a new workstation using our program until you migrate settings in via a thin client booting up.  This should be implemented shortly.

Configuration

Note:  Net::LDAP must be installed on your web server for the Web Configurator to work.

Copy the ltsp directory from the distribution into /home/httpd/html.  Verify that the files are owned by root, group root.  The directories should have permissions 0755, html, pm, and .htaccess files should have permissions 0644, and cgi files should have permissions 0755.

In access.conf or httpd.conf, if latest version of Apache, set AllowOverride None to be AllowOverride Options AuthConfig in <Directory /home/httpd/html> and then restart Apache.

Create the directory /etc/httpd/auth and then run htpasswd -c /etc/httpd/auth/ltsp.passwd username where username is the name of the user account that will be needed to gain access to the web site when prompted by Apache.  Enter the password you would like to use and re-enter it for verification.

In /home/httpd/html/ltsp/cgi-bin edit ltsp.pm and modify the following values:

At this point the Web Based Configuration Program should be fully configured and all you have to do is point your browser at your web server and log in.  Apache will prompt you for the user name and password you specified when creating the ltsp.passwd file and then you will be greeted by our Login screen.  If you do not create the ltsp.passwd file and disable the .htpasswd file our program will complain that you have not authenticated with the web server and not allow you to login or do any work.  This is to provide as much security as possible as we are not prompting for the LDAP administrative account but just it's password.  Multiple "administrators" can be using the program (though what that will do if trying to edit or delete the same entries - we haven't tested yet).

Security Issues

We use a session id to keep track of the user and store the LDAP password using this as the key.  This way the password is not being stored in the clear in any local text files or in the html content itself.   We are currently using a DB hash file to store the session id and password with, so if this file is deleted while you are working in the system you will get an error message saying that you could not be found and that you need to log back in.  We do provide a mechanism on the "Successfully logged out page" to purge all session id's from the hash file if this were to become an issue.  You should only have session id's in the hash file if your browser crashed while you were in the site and you hadn't logged out yet or you closed your browser without logging out first.

X Modeline Configuration

As of version 1.3, the web configurator now has the feature to generate X modelines and assign them on a per workstation basis.  Functions for dynamically generating modelines given the horizontal refresh rate or the dot clock frequency and the desired resolution have been included to allow the user to create tweaked modelines for a workstation.  These function were adapted from the Xconfigurator contrib code by Andreas Bohne and may or may not generate valid, correct X modelines.  Use this feature at your own risk!  PC & Web Xperience, Inc. assumes no liability for damages incurred by these functions or by the web configurator software.  That being said, to create and use modelines there are 7 basic steps:
For further assistance on how to more fully utilize the X Modeline Configuration interface, click the Help button at the top of the section for online help.

Until the functions that generate the X modelines can be tuned to produce more accurate mode numbers, it is recommended that you enter well-known modelines into the Modeline: text field and add those to the Available Modes list instead of generating them using the Generate Modeline button.  Valid and working X modelines can be obtained from an existing XF86Config file or by using Xconfigurator or XF86Setup to generate a new XF86Config file.  You might even pull the default modes from the source code to Xconfigurator or XF86Setup.

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