CONFIGURING YOUR DOMAIN NODE FOR X TERMINAL-LIKE OPERATION


Many older Domain workstations do not have the processing power to
keep up with the demands of newer applications, particularly
sophisticated Graphical User Interfaces.  However, they do function
quite well in this environment as an X terminal.

An X terminal is different from a workstation in that it runs a single
process, the X server.  All OS facilities required by the server, such
as networking, are built into the server itself.  The X Display
Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP) is used by the X terminal to request
that a display manager on a remote host, such as xdm or HP Vue's
vuelogin, start a session on the X terminal.  All clients are executed
on the host and displayed on the X terminal.

This document describes configuring a DN3000 with 8Mbytes of memory to
function as an X terminal.  Running the X server as an X terminal is
straight forward, but arriving at the minimum configuration that
provides a server with reasonable performance is more challenging.  We
used the system monitoring tool /systest/ssr_util/vmstat to determine
the amount of physical memory being used by the system, and llkob(3)
to see which file system objects were in use.


REQUIRED SUBSYSTEM

The only subsystem that is required is TCP/IP.  The "Configuring and
Managing TCP/IP" manual provides configuration information for TCP/IP.
In addition, you should consider the following:

   o Rather than running BIND services you can create your own
     /etc/hosts file.  The only hosts that you will need in /etc/hosts
     are the host you want to run a session from and the host to serve
     as the X terminal.

   o Also, you should change /etc/ttys so that the DM is not started.
     This can be done by putting a -x as the first parameter to
     /etc/dm_or_spm.  For example:

        console "/etc/dm_or_spm -x"     apollo  on      secure         \
        # use mkcon to redirect console output


CONFIGURING THE HOST

The host must run some XDMCP-compliant session manager such as HP's
VUE or xdm from the X Consortium.  Refer to the vendor's documentation
for information on configuring the host to manage remote machines
using XDMCP.  You will also need a login account on the host in order
to use it from an X terminal


STARTING THE X SERVER

Add the invocation of /etc/Xdomain to /etc/rc or /etc/rc.users.  There
are two possible ways for the X server to initiate a session with the
host machine:

   o The -query hostname option will tell the server to request the
     host, hostname, to initiate a session with the server.  This
     option allows you to always start a session on the same host.

   o The -broadcast option can be used to broadcast a request on the
     network.  Any capable host could answer this broadcast to
     initiate a session.

See the Xdomain man page for more information.  In the future, we plan
on providing a chooser client so that the user can select which host
to start a session from.


LOGGING IN LOCALLY

If you ever need to login to your X terminal, you will need to either
enable rlogin/telnet by having inetd start at boot time, or allow crp
by starting the Server Process Manager by uncommenting the appropriate
lines in /etc/rc.user.  If your DN machine is not booted diskless, you
should enable this so that you can shut the machine down.


RUNNING LOCAL CLIENTS

If you find that you have some X clients that you use frequently, you
can run them locally.  Either add them to the rc files or start them
remotely.  Some experimentation is needed here.  The speed of your
terminal, your host, the network between the two and the kind of
client you want to run will determine on which machine you want to run
the client.


DISK SPACE

X fonts require from 1 to 8 Mbytes.  If disk space is an issue, you
can create a symbolic link for /usr/X11/lib/fonts to another machine.
Alternatively, you can configure an X11R5 X server to use the font
server on a remote machine.  This will keep you from having to install
all of the fonts locally.


MINIMUM CONFIGURATION FOR ACCEPTABLE PERFORMANCE

We have found a DN3000 with 8 meg of memory and a 4 plane monitor
running SR10.4 is quite adequate as an X terminal to a HP Series 720
running HP-UX 8.0 with VUE.  Anything less than this configuration
would likely not provide adequate performance.


NOTICE

The information contained within this document is subject to change
without notice.

Hewlett-Packard makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this
material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.  Hewlett-Packard
shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or
consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance
or use of this material.

(C) Copyright Hewlett-Packard Company 1993