Detailed Information on how to configure KVM for remote access
First of all I'm not a Linux guru or scripting wizard and so please realize that in answering. I'm attempting to configure a RHEL 7.4 server as a KVM host and I want the hosted VMs to be accessible by other systems in our domain through a VNC session that allows 2 monitors. Here's what I've configured so far:
- a RHEL 7.4 server
*The server is hosting a RHEL 5.11 KVM
*xWindows is running on all
Goals:
* 5.11 KVM to connect to domain/LAN and receive DHCP address
*Need to access the KVM from workstations in the domain running VNC
*Workstations need VNC sessions to display on 2 monitors
5.11 currently runs an DGI app that we intend to upgrade to RHEL 7.x platform on KVM on the server above.
How can I best achieve the goals outline above? Thanks!
Responses
You might want to clarify a few things:
Do you want all users to have shared access to the "local" desktop of the RHEL 5.11 VMs, or do you want each user to have an independent session/desktop? In other words, if user A leaves a program running and disconnects his VNC session, and user B connects to the system, is user B supposed to see a) the program user A left running, or b) an empty desktop?
With "VNC sessions to display on 2 monitors", do you mean 2 independent sessions on one monitor each, one session whose desktop size is large enough to fully cover 2 monitors, or something else?
the characteristics of the application: is it something each user will run on his/her own user account, or is it something that runs on a specific application account with shared access to all legitimate users? Is it an application that each user will start, do things and exit, or is it something that keeps running long-term and a team of users needs to monitor/manage it? The acronym "DGI app" is not very enlightening to me: neither Google nor Wikipedia had anything that would clearly and unambiguously associate "DGI" with any specific type of application.
Then you'll need multiple VNC server instances, as each VNC server can serve only one user at a time. And those VNC server instances must run on the RHEL 5.11 VMs: trying to make a RHEL 5.11 VM have multiple "local" sessions and making them accessible at the RHEL7.4 virtualization host level would be very difficult or impossible. So your task becomes: "I have a RHEL 5.11 system, I need it to be a server for multiple simultaneous VNC sessions, one for each VNC-authorized user." The fact that the RHEL 5.11 is a virtual machine turns out to be irrelevant.
Having multiple monitors is basically a client-side issue: for example, if a client has two monitors with 1920x1200 resolution side-by-side, then then a VNC session with a 3840x1200 resolution should be set up for that client. Splitting it onto two physical monitors will be the client system's job.
It appears that RHEL's default VNC set-up does not really have the facilities to prompt for usernames, as even the setup for RHEL7 described in RHKB requires dedicating a specific port number for each named user. For RHEL 5.x, there is this tip on VNC configuration and, perhaps more useful, this Red Hat Labs application for producing a VNC configuration.
The VNC configurator app unfortunately does not include custom resolutions, but after you've used it to create your vncconfig.sh script, you could just download the script and then edit the "-geometry" options within the script to suit the display configurations you need. For example, if you select "1920x1200" in the configurator app for a particular user, you'll find a "-geometry 1920x1200" option within the generated script. Just change it to "-geometry 3840x1200" if your user has two such screens side-by-side.
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