debian, xdmcp and an ol’ pc

I’ve tried a bit to get my old k6-2 ready for battle again but the best shot was to use xdmcp with an athlon 64. I’ll describe what i’ve done to get it working on debian lenny.
I’ve always used kdm, but the version shipped with the distro has some issues with xdmcp so I switched to gdm to avoid later problems. Backporting is not an option for me, since upgrading later can be really a kick.

The following steps should be done on the application server.
For debian, don’t forget to change “/etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc”, commenting the line “exec /usr/bin/X11/X -dpi 100 -nolisten tcp”, since, for security reasons, debian blocks any incoming connection to the X port.
Besides that, those are standard procedures. Run gdmsetup and go to the Remote tab and in Style, choose anything but “remote login disabled”. Go through “Configure XDMCP” if you want to change anything else, but note that it is not necessary. Now to Security tab, uncheck “Deny TCP connections to Xserver”. Right, restart gdm
# /etc/init.d/gdm restart
and you’re ready to roll out.

On the clients (or X servers) run
# X -query app_server_ip

If you already have and X session open, do
# X :2 -query app_server_ip

It is also possible to use broadcast (if it is enabled)
# X -broadcast
This way, even without telling the ip, you will connect to the first pc that answers the broadcast on the network.

Gdm can also let you find a xdmcp server from its own interface, just click the actions button and you will have it!

For more information about how to configure xdmcp and some details on other distros and kde, click here (in portuguese).

cheers!