From antoine at nagafix.co.uk Wed May 4 16:40:44 2011 From: antoine at nagafix.co.uk (Antoine Martin) Date: Wed, 04 May 2011 22:40:44 +0700 Subject: [winswitch] [ANNOUNCE] version 0.11.4 - bugfixes + features Message-ID: <4DC1737C.7000305@nagafix.co.uk> Hi, Version 0.12.1 is now available: http://winswitch.org/downloads/ This is the first public version of the 0.12.x branch. (0.12.0 was built and posted two days ago but this announcement was delayed because some fairly significant bugs were spotted soon after) The most noteworthy features in this release are: * Super-fast session start. To try it out, start the applet, then simply type: wcw xterm (obviously you can replace xterm with anything you actually want to use) * Sound fixes: applications that are likely to use sound (ie: media/video/sound applications) will have sound connected by default and the sound will be moved to the new machine when you send the session there. (not yet available on MS Windows) More complete aggregated release notes are copied below. You can now also use the forum to post your questions: https://winswitch.org/forum/1/ Cheers Antoine RELEASE_NOTES: *********************************************************************** New or enhanced features: * Super-fast session start * Reliable session sound * Adds GStreamer video streaming option for shadowing sessions * Mac OS X: warn the user if SSH X11 forwarding is turned off * More reliable fix for strange keyboard mappings with Xpra Enhancements and bug fixes: * Fix spurious VNC timeouts due to log file buffering * Avoid error message when SSH sessions terminate * Windows build: include the correct DLL versions (again..) * SSH needs password OR keys * Detect applications that can only be started once per session and show a warning * Detect firewalls blocking mDNS * Fix missing start desktop menu on some platforms * Avoid crashes when notification daemon is installed but not running * Simplified the MS Windows build scripts * Avoid paths and features not available on some platforms (/proc on win32, etc) * Updated binary builds: newer versions of PyGTK, pyasn1, etc * Application Dock icon on Mac OS X * Fixed links in about dialog *********************************************************************** From antoine at nagafix.co.uk Sun May 15 13:10:12 2011 From: antoine at nagafix.co.uk (Antoine Martin) Date: Sun, 15 May 2011 19:10:12 +0700 Subject: [winswitch] [Parti-discuss] WinSwitch install instruction errata for debian based systems In-Reply-To: <4DCF75AF.1050009@sbts.com.au> References: <4DCF75AF.1050009@sbts.com.au> Message-ID: <4DCFC2A4.5060201@nagafix.co.uk> Hi David, Note that you sent this to the parti/xpra mailing list, and not winswitch's. I am cross-posting so those who are interested can follow it up there but please remove parti-discuss when replying as this is not related to the partiwm project. Now, about the use of sudo: although I understand your concerns, my goal is to keep the instructions readable and simple. Those like you who do not wish to run the 3 lines of shell as root should be able to work out where (gk)sudo needs to be added instead. I much prefer telling the user in clear steps what is going on (ie: become root) so they can use whatever alternative they want (su, ssh, "terminal as root", etc), rather than forcing them to use sudo 3 times. I guess it is also a matter of personal taste. my 2p: people who erase filesystems with typos should not have root access. Similar story for those who do not exit the root shell. Cheers Antoine On 15/05/11 13:41, David Godfrey wrote: > Hi Antoine > > On page http://winswitch.org/downloads/debian-repository.html > specifically on > http://winswitch.org/downloads/debian-repository.html?dist_select=maverick > you state..... > All the instructions below must be run as root, so open a terminal and > become root: > sudo su - > Then you go on to give the commands that should be run. > > From an administrators perspective I would prefer to see each command > run with sudo. > So you would end up with > |Step 1: Import the packager's key: > wget -O - http://winswitch.org/gpg.asc | sudo apt-key add -| > Step 2: Maverick Meerkat (10.10) > echo "deb http://winswitch.org/ maverick main" > sudo tee -a > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winswitch.list; > sudo apt-get update; > sudo apt-get install winswitch > There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that on many > modern systems there is no root password so, as you have done you need > to use sudo anyway. > In a secured environment (yes even small business and domestic where > there are kids about) is would be common enough to find that su can't be > run with sudo, because while you may allow a user to do various tasks as > root you normally prevent them becoming root. > > A good reason to use sudo in this case is the wget command. > While the "|apt-key add" needs to be run as root, I don't believe that > any command that retrieves information from a webpage or similar should > EVER be run as root. > Not that I know of any exploits in wget, but the potential is there, and > it could be disastrous. > > |In my mind the most important reason to use sudo for each command is > simple.... > you can't forget to relinquish root privileges, while if you are using a > root terminal, it is all too easy to continue using it long after you > should. Potentially doing harm to the installation. > > I am on this soapbox because of exactly that scenario, I have just spent > about 14 hours recovering a customers system (forensic level recovery) > after they followed someone's instructions to become root before running > a series of commands. > The intended use of the root terminal complete they continued to use it > for other tasks and due to a simple typo erased half of their system, > including all of there data. > It wouldn't have been so bad, but at the time they had their backup > connected and damaged that as well! > > I'll get off of my soapbox now. > > Of course these same notes can likely be applied to any other > distribution that has sudo available too. > > Regards > David G > > > > _______________________________________________ > Parti-discuss mailing list > Parti-discuss at partiwm.org > http://lists.partiwm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/parti-discuss From antoine at nagafix.co.uk Wed May 18 07:29:15 2011 From: antoine at nagafix.co.uk (Antoine Martin) Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 13:29:15 +0700 Subject: [winswitch] [Parti-discuss] WinSwitch install instruction errata for debian based systems In-Reply-To: <4DD3197F.1010409@sbts.com.au> References: <4DCF75AF.1050009@sbts.com.au> <4DCFC2A4.5060201@nagafix.co.uk> <474CF61C-70FA-462D-BBBC-EB7558F68651@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> <4DD3197F.1010409@sbts.com.au> Message-ID: <4DD3673B.30500@nagafix.co.uk> Once again, please remove partiwm mailing list when replying to this thread and keep winswitch ML - *not* the other way around. These questions are related to the winswitch website and not with partiwm (xpra) code. (snip) >> It seems to me like you could avoid this debate by simply replacing: >> All the instructions below must be run as root, so open a terminal and >> become root: >> sudo su - >> Then you go on to give the commands that should be run. >> >> with: >> The following instructions below must be run in a terminal with >> root privileges. >> Use su or sudo with all suitable precautions. At this point, you would lose a small but non negligible number of users who have no idea what you are asking them to do. I have just added to step-0: "and don't forget to exit the session when you're done with these instructions" That will have to do. (snip) Cheers Antoine From antoine at nagafix.co.uk Fri May 27 21:37:22 2011 From: antoine at nagafix.co.uk (Antoine Martin) Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 03:37:22 +0700 Subject: [winswitch] [ANNOUNCE] version 0.12.2 - lots of bugfixes Message-ID: <4DE00B82.1010302@nagafix.co.uk> Hi, Version 0.12.2 is now available: http://winswitch.org/downloads/ This version contains a large number of bugfixes for all platforms. The highlights are: FreeBSD and KDE bug fixes, CentOS and openSUSE package fixes, support for Ubuntu's unity, gnome-shell, etc Many new protocol options: xpra adaptive JPEG, GStreamer screencasting scaling and compression, etc. For details, please see the full release notes below. Cheers Antoine RELEASE_NOTES: *********************************************************************** This update fixes a number of important bugs which affected a large number of platforms: * Ubuntu 'appindicator' tray support (as used in Natty Narwhal) * FreeBSD fix for log parsing (was not picking up log file changes) * KDE fix preventing the tray icon from being clicked on * updated CentOS (with python2.4 fix) and openSUSE RPM package dependencies * GStreamer streaming now correctly stops when the client closes (this affected both video and sound) * Support for Xpra's new 'adaptive JPEG' mode using bandwidth controls * many new options can now be selected in the session dialogs * FreeBSD (and others): do not assume that python is installed in /usr/bin Other more minor items: * modifier keys should now be detected correcly on all platforms * UI tweaks for gnome-shell (now shows correct application name) * sessions reloaded from disk were missing their icons in the menu * uid was wrongly detected as root on *nix in some cases (environment) * Xpra should detect Xvfb startup errors and warn the user * avoid spawning so many shells * correctly log to file when started from the desktop's menu * Utmp parsing fixed on FreeBSD (and probably other BSDs too) * Gentoo ebuild fixed (EAPI deadline warning) * the custom commands dialog allows longer commands (up to 4096 chars) * if the command that is started is likely to use video, enable Xpra's new adaptive jpeg for remote servers * new TigerVNC 1.1 beta build for Ubuntu and Debian * don't show password prompt 3 times if the user clicks cancel (oops) (also correctly handle the password if entered, re-oops) * it seems newer distros (ie: Fedora 15 and others) need "Xvfb -noreset" (probably because of the newer [py]gtk version) * various code cleanups New session options (shown when the 'modifier key' is held): * GStreamer video: scaling and compression options * clipboard option for Xpra, NX, VNC and RDP * fullscreen option for rdesktop and VNC * VNC: Read-only mode, JPEG quality and compression options * SSH: compression option ***********************************************************************