Think Thin: Thin Client and Server Based Computing Group Blog

Last time I talked to you, I was trying to ease you into the new way we are delivering the Sun Ray Software 5 documentation.  What can I say, I'm a very nurturing person.

Positive Feedback

The good news is that my prediction that everything was going to be o.k. held true.  After going through a vigorous Early Access program (which ended on July 31st), the wiki documentation held its own.  In fact, we actually received the following positive feedback from customers:

• "I like the new wiki format for documentation."
• "wikis.sun.com online documentation is huge improvement"
• "I relied heavily on the wiki.. certain steps are always tricky during an upgrade and the wiki documents these better."
• "Again the wiki is cool, but it is hard to find information sometime and customers want pdfs."

Dynamic PDFs

The last feedback brings up a good point about some users still wanting (or needing) PDFs, and I forgot to mention in my last post that we have that covered as well.  On both the SRSS and SRWC documentation sites, you can dynamically build PDFs based on all the information on the wiki.  And, the PDFs will be in sync with the latest content on the wiki.  Here are the specific pages where you can get to the PDFs, and the links to these pages are also provided on the left-hand nav bar on each site:

• http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRSS4dot2/Printable+PDFs
  
• http://wikis.sun.com/display/SRWC2dot2/Printable+PDFs

I know these PDFs are not as slick as what you are used to from Sun, but we are working on that and the output will continue to improve. I'm on it.

Comments, Calling All Comments

Now, even with the positive feedback, there is still room for improvement...there is always room for improvement. We are getting ready for the next Early Access program and we are continuing to improve the content based on reviews and comments.   If you are feeling some post-EA1 blues and want to provide more input to the SRS 5 release, you are in luck.  The wikis are always open for comments and you can make comments on a specific page.

Here's how to provide a comment on the wiki:

• Log in to wikis.sun.com.
• Navigate to the page. 
• Choose Comment from the Add icon.
  The comment section is displayed.
  
• Enter your comment. 
• Click Post.

From our good friends over at the Sun xVM Ops Center team, see the How to comment on a Sun Wiki page screencast for a visual, step-by-step tutorial.

Looking forward to your comments, and I'll be back again soon with some more documentation goodness.

(BTW, if you are wondering why I've included a picture of a koala bear, I don't have a good answer for you.  I like when blogs have pictures and I didn't have one to provide.  So, I thought I would give you a random koala bear picture.  It's hard not to smile when you see one of these marsupials.  Again, I'm all about the nurturing....)

Paul

Additionally HERE you can find some instructions/scripts which can help to install, configure and connect your SGD server to Active Directory.

From January 15th through the 18th, Sun will be holding a Software Event in Grenoble, France.  Days 1 and 2 will be focused on Sun Ray, Secure Global Desktop, and the Sun VDI solution.  I will be presenting along with Andy and Dirk.  We're even trying to get Matt to come to cover Sun Ray Server in conjunction with S10 Trusted Extensions.

Alexis' blog has the details on how to register for the FREE event. 

Hope to see you there.

(P.S. Anyone know of a good gym in Grenoble?)

Patch -07 for Sun Ray SRSS 3.1 has been released and is available on SunSolve. 

Patch ID's are:

Solaris SPARC: 120879-07

Solaris X86: 120880-07

Linux: 120881-07

Problems Fixed In Patch: 

• Remote Control Toolkit - Remote Control functions for all SRSS sessions based on VNC - Updated for SRSS 4.0
• Follow-Me Printing - Integrates the basic follow-me printing functionality
• Sun Ray Windows Connector Lockscreen - Provides "Lock-on-card-removal" function for uttsc sessions
• Kiosk Generic Session - Provides a blank X Canvas which will run the script given in the Arguments field of the Kiosk GUI

• ICA Kiosk Session - Complete, easy to install and configure ICA session. Including all .ini file manipulation. I'm almost done here. Need to fix a keyboard issue with Linux
• SRWC Advanced USB - Using the scrips provided by Daniel Cifuentes, this should simplify access to USB devices
• Kiosk Billboard - Provides an easy to use mechanism for using Sun Rays as electronic billboard devices.
  

Installing SRSS on one of the supported versions of Linux requires us to deliver a different version of GDM. The version delivered, and most recent GDM builds, contain the hooks necessary to create and destroy other Xsessions/Xservers on the fly. As you could probably understand, this is necessary for SRSS.

SLES is distributed with KDM for managing sessions. Unfortunately, we havn't been focused on testing/updating/pushing to get KDM to do what is necessary for SRSS. This is why we install GDM on SLES.

The default gdm.conf only looks for gnome session types, which on SLES 9 is VERY old. If you are installing on SLES, you probably want KDE.

To restore the option to use a KDE session, edit /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf

un-comment this line:

And change this line:

To:

The final step is to make kde.desktop accessible to GDM:

That's it...

The 05 rev of the Sun Ray Server Software 3.1 patch has been released.

Solaris SPARC
Solaris X86
Linux

This is the first patch to have Sun Ray 2 specific firmware included, along with the following fixes:


6382740 Sun Ray 170 can get stuck sending exchangeAPDU to certain OpenPlatform-like smartcards, causing 26D
6459224 utreader allows only eight token readers, customer wants more
5025790 utreader output with options -c, -d is not giving meaning as said in usage
6457072 Support on Sun Ray for smartcard operations with 2048 bit keys
6443568 Some USB 2.0 hubs don't appear to work when attached to Sun Ray
6306412 KDE display is corrupt under numerous and quick graphic changes
6422934 utquery can fail to collect and report responses
6437329 utauthd crash in GroupManager.whichServer
6355343 utuser -r causes all DTUs in FOG to alternate between the "X" and "100F ...
6465742 Need Support for Starcos SPK23 family of cards
6468437 Support for Incrypto smart cards
6457990 Sometimes SR270, Sun Ray 2 and Sun Ray 2FS hang when Authenticated Smart Cards are used
6446288 Mouse pointer "floats" and/or doesn't reach the title bar when in full screen mode on MS windows
6471000 Sessions with very long tokens are not redirected correctly
6446769 Balance must be made read-only for speaker-option on 270 170
6428572 Provide firmware support for new Sun Ray 2,Sun Ray 2fs Sun Ray 270 units
6482453 Firmware panics on NULL value for redirectProps key