3 ms·

I wonder if this can be used to set up a multi-headed workstation environment, where each user has their own desktop (Linux) on the same large, megalithic serve

by ibisum 12y ago

I wonder if this can be used to set up a multi-headed workstation environment, where each user has their own desktop (Linux) on the same large, megalithic server? I have a machine with 128gigs of RAM and 1TB of SSD .. this seems like the perfect situation where I can give a desktop to 3 or 4 users on the same machine. Anyone know how well that works with Guacamole yet?

rev_bird 12y ago
It doesn't seem like a particularly elegant solution, but with that much memory, you could almost certainly carve out 4 VMs, each running a separate guac instance, right? Getting to them might be trickier, though...
- jitl 12y ago
  You don't need a separate Guacamole application instance for each user or even each VNC/RDP host -- each user in your Guacamole config has its own connection settings and operates independently of other sessions.
  - ibisum 12y ago
    I've since gone through the setup of Guacamole and tried things out - indeed, its as you state, you can isolate users pretty well. I was able to set up 3 test users, each with their own WM, and independent logins on the machine .. and it works pretty well. I can see this as being a great facility for a small-office environment that just wants to run a single machine that services multiple users, each logging in with Android tablets or whatever other cheap browser-supporting devices they may have .. pretty neat, and you can't beat the ease of deployment: just point your users at their web URL, and there's their Linux desktop. (I was even able to run Inkscape and Ardour on different logins, without too much fuss .. worked quite well!)
    - jitl 12y ago
      I had struggles when using my iPad with Guacamole, but it works great with Chromebooks/Chromeboxes!
tekacs 12y ago
Mmph, have done this with XenServer (can just self-built OSS) and just standard RDP clients for the short while I had access to a machine about that powerful. That worked beautifully and gave me (yes, just me :P) a bunch of very practical isolated environments on which I concurrently ran various heavy workloads (and one as my 'standard desktop' on which I watched YouTube videos whilst waiting for things :P). I only use Linux/OSX for local machines, but RDP was substantially more responsive than any VNC server I could get my hands on (including RealVNC Enterprise). Layering Guacamole shouldn't cause any real trouble beyond that - the dashboard needs to run on a separate Unix machine and so can be pointed at all those desktops just fine once you set up the network interfaces.

by ibisum 12y ago

rev_bird 12y ago

It doesn't seem like a particularly elegant solution, but with that much memory, you could almost certainly carve out 4 VMs, each running a separate guac instance, right? Getting to them might be trickier, though...

jitl 12y ago
You don't need a separate Guacamole application instance for each user or even each VNC/RDP host -- each user in your Guacamole config has its own connection settings and operates independently of other sessions.
- ibisum 12y ago
  I've since gone through the setup of Guacamole and tried things out - indeed, its as you state, you can isolate users pretty well. I was able to set up 3 test users, each with their own WM, and independent logins on the machine .. and it works pretty well. I can see this as being a great facility for a small-office environment that just wants to run a single machine that services multiple users, each logging in with Android tablets or whatever other cheap browser-supporting devices they may have .. pretty neat, and you can't beat the ease of deployment: just point your users at their web URL, and there's their Linux desktop. (I was even able to run Inkscape and Ardour on different logins, without too much fuss .. worked quite well!)
  - jitl 12y ago
    I had struggles when using my iPad with Guacamole, but it works great with Chromebooks/Chromeboxes!

tekacs 12y ago

Mmph, have done this with XenServer (can just self-built OSS) and just standard RDP clients for the short while I had access to a machine about that powerful. That worked beautifully and gave me (yes, just me :P) a bunch of very practical isolated environments on which I concurrently ran various heavy workloads (and one as my 'standard desktop' on which I watched YouTube videos whilst waiting for things :P). I only use Linux/OSX for local machines, but RDP was substantially more responsive than any VNC server I could get my hands on (including RealVNC Enterprise). Layering Guacamole shouldn't cause any real trouble beyond that - the dashboard needs to run on a separate Unix machine and so can be pointed at all those desktops just fine once you set up the network interfaces.