[rescue] Running X on Headless Server??????

[Brian Dunbar]

Dave McGuire [mailto:mcguire at neurotica.com] on Saturday, September 27, 2003
1:49 PM said;


>> If you login to a headless box with a serial terminal you can start an
>> xterm to display on another box with "xterm -display otherbox:0.0"
>
> Example; Oracle Portal requires an X-server to display the graphics it
> generates in reports.

   This is a point of confusion of X clients vs. an X server.  An X 
server can be anywhere on a TCP/IP (or DECnet) connected network, 
separate from the clients.  The server is what talks to the video 
system, keyboard, and pointing devices.

   The correct approach is to have the beefy Oracle server chugging away 
in the computer room with no framebuffer installed (Why does a server 
need a graphical display?  It doesn't!) and a graphical workstation 
(running an X server) on the admin's desk.  The admin runs the app on 
the database server, the X client part of which connects to the admin's 
workstation and opens a window.

   This is the Right Way To Do Things(tm).

FWIW, I agree.  For obscure political or technical reasons (before my time
there) it wasn't setup that way.

~brian