SUMMARY: EWS software on Digital Unix

From: Daniel Clar <Daniel.Clar_at_supelec.fr>
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 12:02:05 +0100

The original posting was

>
> Hello,
>
> Has someone tried to run the EWS software (to transform a VAX station into
> an X-terminal) on Digital Unix ?
>
> I've taken the Ultrix images and "mxed" them but it's not enough.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Daniel
>

Thank you to :

Our "favorite speaker in this list" "Dr. Tom Blinn, 603-884-0646"
<tpb_at_doctor.zk3.dec.com>

The parts of EWS that ran on the ULTRIX host system used interfaces that
were never documented or officially supported (that is, the developers
had
access to the ULTRIX version of XDM and knew how it interfaced with
things
on ULTRIX like login and passwd, and used "private" interfaces that
simply
are not present on DEC OSF/1 or Digital UNIX). So the components are
not
simple ports. If you had sources, you MIGHT be able to figure out how
to
re-work the security interfaces to use the SIA library calls, or you
might
be smart enough to give up.

and a particular thank to Peter Stern <peter_at_wiscpa.weizmann.ac.il>
who sent me some files and helped me a lot to put them in place.

The solution is to use a running EWS server as OpenVMS VAX/Alpha (or
Ultrix I suppose) and to use some undocumented feature of the software
to tun a particular program after the boot instead of the
decw$startlogin program on the VMS side. This program is just there to
remove the protection on the X server so that a remote node is able to
send a login window on the Vaxstation.
Once is done the Vaxstation is waiting for this window as a standard X
terminal. So on the Digital Unix computer you have just to declare the
X-terminal in the right place /usr/dt/config/Xservers (CDE) or
/usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers (xdm).

It's also necessary to have some font alias file on the boot node and to
be sure that there is no running process for the Vaxsation on this boot
node.

It seems OK with CDE and we've still some problem with xdm because after
the login window there is an error message telling that the access is
denied to start the session manager from the remote client. It's strange
because the login window was there. in the /usr/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-errors
file the message is rather clear:

Warning:
        Name: dxlogin
        Class: XmDisplay
        Creating multiple XmDisplays for the same X display. Only the
        first XmDisplay created for a particular X display can be referenced
        by calls to XmGetXmDisplay

Then there are several warnings with the same name and class but with
        _MOTIF_DRAG_WINDOW has been destroyed.

Daniel Clar
Supelec
Received on Wed Nov 04 1998 - 11:02:51 NZDT

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