Skip past navigation linksSecure Global Desktop 4.40 Administration Guide > Applications, Documents, and Application Servers > Configuring X Applications

Configuring X Applications

You use an X application object if you want to give an X11 graphical application to users.

This page includes the following topics:

Configuring X Application Objects

In the SGD Administration Console, the configuration settings for X application objects are divided into the following tabs:

The following table lists the most commonly used settings for configuring X application objects and how to use them.

Tab Attribute Description
General Name The name that users see.
General Icon The icon that users see.
Launch Application Command The full path to the application that runs when users click the link.

The application must be installed in the same location on all application servers.

The following are commonly used commands for desktop sessions:

  • /usr/dt/config/Xsession.jds - for a Sun Java Desktop System desktop
  • /usr/bin/gnome-session - for a Gnome desktop
  • /usr/bin/startkde - for a KDE desktop

See also how to configure CDE applications and VMS applications.
Launch Arguments for Command Any command-line arguments to use when starting the application.

Note Never specify a -display argument. This is set by SGD.
Launch Connection Method The mechanism SGD uses to connect to the application server, for example telnet or ssh.
Launch Number of Sessions The number of instances of an application a user can run. The default is three.
Launch Application Resumability For how long the application is resumable. The following options are available:
  • Never - the application can never be resumed
  • User session - the application keeps running and is resumable until the user logs out of SGD
  • General - the application keeps running for a time (controlled by the Timeout) after the user logs out of SGD, and can be resumed when the user next logs in
Launch Session Termination The circumstances when the SGD server ends the application session.
Presentation Window Type How the application is displayed to the user.

Use Kiosk for full-screen desktop sessions. Selecting the Scale to Fit Window check box for the Window Size allows SGD to scale the application window to fit the client device display.

Use Client Window Management to display the application as though it is running on the client device.

For other window types, you must specify a Height and Width for the Window Size or select the Client's Maximum Size check box.
Presentation Color Depth The application's color depth.

SGD supports X applications with multiple color depths, for example so you can run an 8-bit application within a 24-bit desktop session by selecting 24/8-bit.
Performance Application Load Balancing How SGD chooses the best application server to run the application.

See Application Load Balancing for more details.
Hosting Application Servers Editable Assignments Use the Editable Assignments table to select the application servers, or group of application servers, that can run the application.

The application must be installed in the same location on all application servers
Assigned User Profiles Editable Assignments Use the Editable Assignments table to select the users that can see the application. Selecting Director or Directory (light) objects allows you to give the application to many users at once. You can also use an LDAP directory to assign applications.

In addition to this configuration, you might want to do the following:

Creating X Application Objects on the Command Line

On the command line, you create an X application object with the tarantella object new_xapp command. You can also batch-create multiple X application objects with the tarantella object script command.

X application objects can only be created in the o=applications organizational hierarchy.

Supported X Extensions

SGD supports the following X extensions for X applications:

The following X extensions are not supported:

X Fonts

SGD includes the standard X Window System fonts in compiled (.pcf) and compressed form, together with some additional fonts required by different UNIX systems. See Fonts in X11R6.8.2 for details. The fonts are installed in the /opt/tarantella/etc/fonts directory.

You can also configure SGD to use your own X fonts.

X Fonts Supplied With SGD

The following X fonts and font directories are available:

Directory Description
75dpi Variable-pitch 75 dpi fonts.
100dpi Variable-pitch 100 dpi fonts.
andrew Fonts from the Andrew toolkit, required by some IBM applications.
CID This is a placeholder for CID-keyed fonts. If you want to add your own CID fonts for use with Secure Global Desktop install them in this directory.
cyrillic Cyrillic fonts.
encodings Contains a set of encoding files used by the Type1 and TrueType font handlers
hangul Korean fonts.
hp Fonts required by some Hewlett-Packard applications.
icl Fonts required by some ICL applications.
misc Fixed-pitch fonts, cursor fonts, and fonts for compatibility with older versions of X.
oriental Kanji and other oriental fonts.
scoterm Cursor fonts.
TTF True Type fonts.
Type1 PostScript Type 1 fonts.

Using Your Own X Fonts

There are two ways to make your own X fonts available through SGD:

After making the X fonts available, configure each SGD server in the array as follows:

  1. In the SGD Administration Console, click the Secure Global Desktop Servers tab and select an SGD server.
  2. Click the Protocol Engines » X tab.
  3. In the Font Path field, type the path to the directory containing your X fonts or the location of the font server.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Restart the SGD server.
  6. Check the validity of a font path.
    1. Use SGD to access a graphical terminal , such as an xterm.
    2. Use the xset q command to see if the font path is set.

Each SGD server in the array can use a different font path. However, to avoid inconsistent display of applications, ensure that the same fonts (in the same order) are available to all SGD servers.

Using a Font Directory

To use a font directory, copy your fonts in .pcf format to a directory on each SGD server in the array and include a fonts.dir file that maps filenames to X logical font descriptions.The fonts can be compressed or gzipped.

The following is an example line from a fonts.dir file:

Skip past command syntax or program codeCOURBO10.pcf  -Adobe-Courier-Bold-0-Normal-10-100-75-75-M-60-ISO8859-1

If your font directory does not include a fonts.dir file, you can use a program such as mkfontdir (available for most UNIX systems) to create one.

You can also include a fonts.alias file, which specifies aliases for the fonts in the directory. This file maps aliases to X logical font descriptions. For example:

Skip past command syntax or program codevariable  *-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-*-140-*

Using a Font Server

A font server is a program that makes fonts on a host available on the network. Font servers make font administration easier by centralizing fonts, reducing duplication.

To name a font server in a font path, you need to know the name of the font server and the port on which fonts are being served. For example, if the font server boston uses port 7000/tcp, add the font path entry tcp/boston:7000.

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