[SunRescue] headlerss station running xdm

[Dave McGuire]

On May 5, valik at softhome.net wrote:
> How is it possible to setup headless station to run xdm, so people can use
> it.
> 
> I've been trying to do that, but X refuses to run since there is no video
> installed.

  You don't want to run X (the X server itself)...just xdm.  The X
server only runs on machines with video/kbd/mouse etc.  You need to
set up the xdm config files correctly and then just run xdm.  An
important hint here is the "Xservers" file, usually located in
/usr/lib/X11/xdm or /usr/X11<whatever>/lib/X11/xdm...it contains one
line for each X server to start ON THE LOCAL MACHINE.  If it contains
a line, comment it out and go from there.

  More detail:
  Usually, on a machine with video/kbd/mouse, xdm starts up, then starts
the X server which manages the display and answers client requests on
tcp port 6000 (and others if there are multiple displays ["screens" in
X terminology] on the local machine).  On a machine with no
video/kbd/mouse, xdm can be run in "broadcast" mode in which it sends
IP broadcasts to announce its availability to the network.  Something
needs to be listening to those broadcasts, though, like an X terminal
or a workstation running "chooser" or something like that.

         -Dave McGuire