Tuesday November 06, 2007 AMGH is now supported with SRSS 4.0 Kiosk mode!
I just thought I'd send out a shout that with SRSS 4.0 (SRS 4 09/07) we have a new model for Kiosk, with AMGH fully integrated. So, there's no need any more for my utpamclient which was necessary with CAM/Kiosk mode in previous releases.
Happy AMGH'ing!
Posted by bobd [Sun] ( November 06, 2007 01:42 PM ) Permalink
Friday March 09, 2007 Another AMGH update regarding usernames which can't be overridden
Due to popular demand, I just added this section to the "AMGH HOW-TO Guide":
An unsupported way to make the "username" non-overridable
Today, the
username returned by the API can be overridden by the Display Manager (e.g. dtlogin's "Start Over" button). Some customers would like this setting to be a sort of "security" feature that cannot be overridden by the user, rather than a "convenience" feature as it exists today. In future, we may add such a feature to the product. There is an unsupported way to deal with this today, however for non-NSCM logins. You can edit /etc/pam.conf and remove the clearuser option from the pam_sunray_amgh.so module. This is not officially supported because it has not been tested by our Quality Assurance team but it has been known to work for some customers. There is no similar recourse for NSCM logins today - the "Start Over" button will clear the preset login name returned by AMGH.
Posted by bobd
[Sun] ( March 09, 2007 01:59 PM )
Permalink
Comments [5]
Sun IT's AMGH script available
I've gotten permission from our (very supportive) VP Bill Vass to post the source to the AMGH script used by Sun IT internally. I've posted that script to my "blog references" links. Hopefully with the model/object description in the "AMGH HOW-TO Guide" it should be comprehensible. Thanks, Bill!
Posted by bobd [Sun] ( March 09, 2007 01:41 PM ) Permalink |Update to the "AMGH HOW-TO" guide
I have added a section to the guide which describes why you probably don't want to create an AMGH script using the SRDS registration database, and some tips if you should decide to do this anyway 
. It appears to be a common request.
In the spirit of a proper blog (which this really isn't), here's the new text in case somebody would like to comment:
If you do go this route, do not be tempted to use the "-c" option to utuser. Although it will restrict the output only to relevant tokens it will have an undesirable performance impact since it involves the Authentication Manager (utauthd) at what can be a critical time (e.g. as a server is first coming up many Sun Rays may be connecting to utauthd simultaneously and creating sessions, all going into the greeter at once so invoking AMGH). "utuser -l" generates more output but does not involve utauthd so will actually scale better in such scenarios.
Why not write an AMGH script utilizing information in the SRDS token registration database?
Initially this may seem attractive but keep in mind that AMGH is intended to work across FOGs, so you really ought to use a single, consistent database which can be shared across FOGs and is not subject to FOG-local typos or errors. Such errors can create inconsistent and hard to diagnose behavior.
Friday January 12, 2007 Well, it seems that my buddy Craig has placed me in a bit of an ethical dilemma. One the one hand, in my very first blog entry I promised (in a somewhat curmudgeonly fashion) These initial entries will be my only personal blog entries. But now I've been tagged for the "5 things" meme. What to do - disappoint my buddy or keep my original promise? In the interest of camaraderie I'll bite. I've tried to pick things even Craig may not know about me:
Five things you did not know about me
- My first full-time computer job was at NASA/Ames Research at Moffett Field, CA, in 1977, with Unix, supporting the Man-Machine Systems Division (now dubbed the Human Systems Integration Division) where they were designing experimental cockpits and trying them out on pilots in simulations. The Head Up Display was designed while I was there. I used to play Zork over the fledgling Arpanet (which evolved into the Internet), hosted from computers in Denver (Global Weather Center?)
- I've lived substantial parts of my adult life in Northern California Go Slugs!, Boston "We're building a machine that will be proud of us", and currently reside in Florida The Mouse is in the House, where I work out of my home
- I love to go biking with my Autistic son Marc, on our 2-seater Tandem Bike, in places like this
- My kids and I also enjoy canoeing at places like Wekiwa Springs, Blue Spring, and De Leon Springs State Parks
- The town I grew up in had a television series based on it
OK Craig, happy?
Posted by bobd
[Personal] ( January 12, 2007 04:42 PM )
Permalink
Comments [1]
Monday March 06, 2006 Another update to the AMGH HowTo
More requests for info, so I've added a section to the AMGH How-To giving some technical details regarding how AMGH works, and a note about AMGH not being supported with CAM/Kiosk mode.However, in the interests of helping folks out, I've also provided some tools and a new guide for how to get AMGH working in CAM/Kiosk mode in an unsupported way.
Posted by bobd [Sun] ( March 06, 2006 07:45 PM ) Permalink |
Friday February 24, 2006 Posted by bobd [Sun] ( February 24, 2006 03:27 PM ) Permalink | Comments [2]
Monday February 20, 2006 Sun Ray at Home becomes more affordable
Recently Sun has started bundling Sun Ray Software along with Sun Solaris Enterprise System, so people who don't want to purchase support can now get it for free without any license fees or software cost.
What a deal! My wife just wrote and published a book using
our Sun Rays and included an acknowledgement for them:
"Instant Romanian For Parents And Caregivers".
We hardly ever turn on our PCs any more, and flinch every
time we do.
Posted by bobd [Personal] ( February 20, 2006 12:59 PM ) Permalink | Comments [1]
Monday November 28, 2005 http://jroller.com/page/trasukg?entry=tried_a_sun_ray_wow
http://42.blogs.warnock.me.uk/2005/04/sunrays_prove_p.html
http://uadmin.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-my-son-uses-sunray.html
Posted by bobd [Personal] ( November 28, 2005 04:17 PM ) Permalink | Comments [2]
Posted by bobd [Sun] ( November 28, 2005 12:16 PM ) Permalink | Comments [2]
Sunday November 20, 2005 The real definition of Sun Ray At Home
My home setup in many ways exemplifies in miniature the value I see in Sun Ray.
In my house, I have a Sun Ray server with a few Sun Rays (bought and paid for) around my house for my family and I to use. I frankly got sick and tired of being a Windows Sys Admin for the 4 PCs on my home LAN. I got sick of constantly researching how to remove the latest virus. Sick of trying to diagnose why a PC got slower and slower and less and less stable over time (due mostly, I believe, to adware/spyware). This was on a network with a hardware firewall as well as software firewalls on all PCs, and the latest virus protection and periodic adware scans/removal. It's a vicious world out there. Actually, just as with the biological sort, I think kids are the main vector for computer viruses as well. They just don't have good Internet hygiene.
Since I installed the Sun Rays I no longer spend my time on this nonsense. My wife is perfectly pleased with StarOffice for her writing/presentations, and my daughter and she have problem-free experiences with the firefox browser on 95% of the websites they visit. The Sun Rays are always on, and instantly available for small tasks such as to find a local business, get driving directions, buy movie tickets, or lookup a grade on a test. When not in use they use very little power - about the same as a decent monitor in power-save mode. They don't make any sound - no disk or fan. Any of us can sit down at whatever Sun Ray we like and pick up our work where we left off, without waiting for bootup. I've plugged in some speakers into a few of them, and we can listen to our mp3 collections wherever we are, and the sound quality is great.
Of course, this isn't our target market, and the cost of the licensing probably prevents us from rolling out Sun Ray servers in people's homes, particularly since the Windows Administrator works for free, so it's hard to make the TCO argument . But it wouldn't be hard to justify at all in a business where you had to pay your workers.
'nuff said. On to content.
Posted by bobd [Personal] ( November 20, 2005 06:21 PM ) Permalink | Comments [7]I'm a software engineer, in the Sun Ray Development group since it came to product in 1999. In the Sun Ray group I've worked in most areas of the product at one time or another. Most of my time has been spent in the administration area and the session creation/hotdesking area.
I've been in the computer industry, using Unix, since 1977.
I've done work on a wide variety of platforms from Massively Parallel Processing Supercomputers to Thin Clients, involving a wide variety of tasks from writing network device drivers to doing administration GUIs.
Posted by bobd [Personal] ( November 20, 2005 06:17 PM ) Permalink | Comments [0]I don't get why people would want to spend time reading them, and I don't get why most people write them. I'm a busy guy, and I spend too much time on the computer and not enough time with my friends and family. I assume that's true for just about everyone. So why read a blog? Why not have a pint with a buddy instead, or take a kid to the park? Unless you're looking for some specific information, of course - that's the beauty of the Internet. So it seems to me that blogs should keep the fluff at a minimum, and the content at a maximum, so people can find the stuff they care about.
I do like the idea of being able to disseminate information that could be valuable to others in a quick and efficient manner, without wasting a bunch of their time (or, frankly, mine), and that's what's finally motivated me to start a blog. So here are my promises to anybody reading my blog:
- I will not fill my blog with a bunch of personal trivia which can't possibly be of interest to strangers. These initial entries will be my only personal blog entries. If you want to chat, ring me up and take me out for a beer, and let's get away from computers and socialize.
- I will not fill my blogs with a bunch of cutesy BS.
- I will only blog when I have something useful to say. Mostly this will be about Sun Ray, the product I work on and which I find, frankly, life altering. Until you use it, you probably won't get it. Once you've used it on a properly provisioned and configured server you probably won't want to use anything else.
