X-Windows CAN be a workable solution IF you:
1) get as much bandwidth as you can, try DSL, cable-modem, ISDN, etc. Don't
try anything less than 56Kb.
2) customize the GUI startup to only open the windows that you need. For
example, we have the Copyright, Navigation Tree and Control Desk windows all
turned off.
3) don't use background files on your submaps
Even if you do all of the above, it will still be slower than in the office.
But if it saves one of your support people a 30 minute drive to work, then
it should be worth it, even if it takes five minutes to get NetView up and
running (which is about how long it takes me at home over a 56Kb dialup
using Hummingbird eXceed 6.1).
Web access IS better than X-Windows, but the R/W map rqmt. is not going
away, so if you can't solve that one at your site, then you're stuck with
X-Windows.
Here's a "workaround" to the R/W map problem. If you dial-in from home, and
find that there's no R/W map running, you can start one on the NetView
server (or any X Server) remotely from home. Just TELNET to the NetView
server. Set the DISPLAY variable to where you want the NetView map to run
(e.g. export DISPLAY=10.1.2.3:0). Then run the "netview" command. That
should start the NetView GUI on the remote server you set in the DISPLAY
variable. Then you should be able to start the web interface from home.
Joel Gerber - I/T Networking Professional - USAA Information Technology Co.
- San Antonio, TX
* (210)456-4231 * mailto:Joel.Gerber@USAA.com "
http://www.usaa.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick McNeil [SMTP:patrick_mcneil@YAHOO.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 14:00
To: NV-L@UCSBVM.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Remote Access / Web Access
Hello everyone,
I am currently being tasked with coming up with a remote access
solution for our network support group. My first suggestion was load
X-Windows Server software on a laptop and the on-call person can take the
laptop home and dial-up for remote access. Unfortunately when I tried it,
it takes on the order of about 15 minutes before NetView is actually usable
when dialing up. What I mean by usable is that you can actually look at the
event log see what is down, etc.
The next solution seems to be web access (which I haven't tried
remotely, yet). It looks like you have to have a read-write map open to do
this. Which is fine during the day, but at night the desktop people want
everyone to log out (which then kills the web session).
Is anyone doing some type of remote access for their administrators?
Is there anyway around the read-write map access? What about in
version 6? What about 3rd party?
Thanks,
Patrick
|