Instead of using my VMs full-screen or using the flaky unity mode in VMware, I’m playing with sshing to the VM and displaying the apps on my host’s X server. It seems to work really well, but:

1) Is there an app that provides you with a bunch of shortcuts to apps on the remote (aka guest) machine rather than having to ssh in and run the commands manually?

2) If my VM is a Windows machine, is it possible to use RDP to run a single app rather than a whole desktop session?

I was under the impression you could script putty to ssh and run a command, a bit like using ssh to remotely run a command under Linux.

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6147203/automating-running-command-on-linux-from-windows-using-putty

Is this what you mean?

X11 tunnelling via Putty and setting the right DISPLAY environment var on the Linux VM *should* work.

(Assumuing you want to see an X-windows app running in the VM on your windows desktop)

You might have to play with xauth / xset commands and MIT Magic Cookies 🙂

No, the desktop is also Linux.

The putty shortcuts are the kind of thing I could use actually. Is putty available for Linux? (Yes I know I can Google it, I will)

Why would you want Putty when you’ll have OpenSSH or something similar as a client? Can you not just script that?

If the desktop is Linux then you can remotely run commands using ssh?

e.g.

$ssh root@1.2.3.4 rm -r *

I normally set up keys and use “-o PreferredAuthentications=publickey” to stop it prompting for the password each time.

Yes, you can run the commands – as I said it works fine.

What I want is a nice neat window full of shortcuts I can simply click on, rather than having to type the commands out each time.

X11 is terribly inefficient over networks and SSH. VNC is just as bad.

RDP is the best protocol but mainly for connecting to Windows machines. There are Linux RDP servers but never really found them any good.

Best option I’ve found is NX from NoMachine, which is a far more efficient remote X11 system, and very good for slow connections. Used to be open source but then went closed, but there is FreeNX server now, and then you can use NoMachine’s free client with it.

Write a bash script which runs in a separate shell window and has a little menu for all your commands? Or use Python + GTK and have a little form floating on your desktop with a button for each command?

For (2) if you’re talking pure Windows then App-V is the normal solution (outside of Citrix) but not sure if there’s anything simpler for a home lab setup

X11 is terribly inefficient over networks and SSH.

Works quite nicely on a vmware host network though. Better than using unity mode in the client. I can also then set my VMs to boot in non graphical mode.

Or use Python + GTK and have a little form floating on your desktop with a button for each command?

I’d have to learn Python then 🙂

Hmm.. LauncherFolders for ubuntu seems to be that.

Write a bash script with the command you want to run and drop the script on your desktop. You can make shortcuts, but TBH that’s probably simpler.

How the hell can you find a list of dhcp clients in vmware ?

You mean the dhcp allocated IP address of the vm client? Without any automation, difficult. I’d offer a solution but we’ve been there before… :-/

Rachel

/etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcp/dhcp.leases is what I was looking for.. I’ve found I can start the vms in the background with a single command.. unlimited dhcp lease, ssh -XY host command…

Hehe this is fun.

Allthegear I appreciate you giving me advice, it’s just that last time it really sounded like what you were suggesting wasn’t right for me, even after it was discussed.