How To Add Exceed To Your Workstation
Last Modified: March 26, 2013
This document is also available on the WEB at
http://jilawww.colorado.edu/~software/installs/exceedxx.htm
[NOTE: Notation below referring to the “N:” drive means the samba drive served from node jilau1. Check your drive mappings and change the N: drive if necessary to be
\\jilau1\apps
]
Windows VISTA/Win7 Users:
You may need to install esound server if you connect to any Linux machines. You can do this after installing Exceed. See the details on that installation in
N:\Win\shared\ESD-EsounD\esound\esound-info.txt
To Install:
You MUST be logged in as the local machine Administrator for the install if want it to available for all users.
Installation:
- Existing Exceed users, if you have Inetd running, stop it. If it is in your Start, Programs, Startup folder, remove it from there as well. Do NOT uninstall your previous version of Exceed. It is necessary to have it in place so that the installer can migrate your settings.
1) Use Windows Explorer and Browse to and select the installation file
N:\win\Exceed##\Msetup.exe
where ‘##’ is the numeric part of the most recent version. Select the “Install Open Text Exceed” and then the “Personal Install” and “English” language options.
2) Splash screen - Click Next
3) The installer will detect that you have an existing version of Exceed and prompt with a check box to migrate your settings and replace your existing version. It is not necessary to do an uninstall later. (However, after the install, remember to delete any previous desktop icons you may have made and replace them with the new ones.)
4) License Screen - We have a site license, just click the radio button to agree. Click Next.
5) Customer Info - For our site license this information should be
Name: JILA Software Manager
Company: JILA, University of Colorado
If necessary correct. Also check the radio button to install for All Users. Click Next.
6) Destination Folder - This is OK as is unless you specifically want something else. Click Next.
7) User Directory - Select the Per-User radio button. Click Next.
8) Setup Type - Click the radio button for Typical. Click Next.
[WARNING: Selecting the Typical option is mostly OK but it will make an icon on your desktop that you can not remove called “Connection Central”. If you do not want this to happen, instead select Custom and go all the way to the bottom of the list of options and click on “Install Options”. Then click on “Connection Central Desktop Icon” and give it the big red X. Then proceed with the rest of the install.]
9) Additional - nothing is needed here. We will do updates later after installing the Secure Connectivity part.
10) Ready to Install - Click Install
The installer will whirl for a while with various status thermometers. This may take a while, be patient, it is also doing the uninstall of the previous version.
11) If asked about the Xconfig Password - This is not necessary for most users. Click Skip.
12) Complete - Click Finish.
You may be requested to reboot, do so if asked. The reboot will do some more installation steps, so again be patient.
Xconfig Fonts:
The installation process manages to get almost all of the settings transferred but, for reasons unknown, one font server may be missing, so you need to check. This is really only necessary if you are using Mathematica when connected to a Linux machine, others may skip these steps.
From the Open Text Exceed ## desktop icon select
- Exceed Tools, Xconfig, Font Management, Font Database edit button
- If you see an entry at the top for “jilasrv” just click back out w/o change. Otherwise:
- click the Add Font Server button, and fill in the Host as ‘jilasrv’ w/o the quotes. Click the ‘Keep’ radio button, then OK.
- using the Move Up button position the new server font at the top of the list.
- click OK, click the Validate and Apply Changes and exit Xconfig.
IMPORTANT-NEW Xconfig Server Visual Color:
Exceed when connecting to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 server no longer allows a setting of PseudoColor Emulation. This has been our default in the past so if you migrated your settings this needs to be changed. After starting Xconfig (see Xconfig Fonts above for how to do that), select
- Display and Video
- click the pull-down menu for Server Visual
- select Auto Select
- click on the top menu button that looks like a big green checkmark to save the settings.
Failure to do this setting will result in your inability to get a login window to any RHEL5 machine.
While in Xconfig other setting you may need to know if this is a first time install or in some cases the migration doesn’t get all the settings:
- Network & Communications - XDMCP Broadcast
- X Server Protocol
- DEC Windows Compatibility
- Display & Video
- 0 Screen Tab - Single Window Mode, Auto Select
- Common Settings Tab - you may want to Uncheck the Close Warning on Exit
Copy & Paste - Clipboard with all options checked
Remember to click the green Validate button for each setting screen if you want the settings to be saved.
You may start Exceed at any time by selecting Start, Programs, and the Open Text Exdeedxx folder. In the folder Exceed, select the Exceed executable, it should have an icon that looks like a Yellow-X, and double click on it. Notice that you also have a desktop icon like a folder called “ Open Text Exceedxx” that gets to the same place. You may want to drag and drop a shortcut for Exceed to your desktop. Note that if you had an icon for the previous version it is now broken. Delete it and make a new one.
Linux v/s VMS:
(You may first wish to read the information on Linux in general at
N:\win\Exceedxx\ExceedLinuxGUI_HowTo.pdf
)
The keyboard mappings required when connected to a host depend on the operating system of the host. Therefore the mappings needed for our Linux and VMS hosts are different. I have created some files that can help with this, particularly if you need to connect to both Linux machines like node jialu1 and our VMS machine node JILAVMS.
There are three type of files of interest:
- .kbd These are the files that store the keyboard mappings
- .xcfg The configuration files
- .ses Are X-Session files
The way it works is that Exceed starts, either as straight Exceed or as an X-Session, and has a configuration file specified. The .xcfg file that is used specifies the keyboard file.
1) in the subdirectory
N:\Win\Exceed##\JILA-Samples
the files of interest are
- ExceedVMS.xcfg and Exceedlinux.xcfg - These are configuration files that are setup with key mappings for VMS and Linux. Each user will have to copy these files to their personal local installation areas, for XP in
C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserNameHere\Application Data\Hummingbird\Connectivity\##.00\Exceed
For Vista/Win7 users, copy the files to
C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\Hummingbird\Connectivity\##.00\Exceed
- decemusLinux.kbf and decemusVMS.kbf the keyboard files. Copy them to the same location.
- jilau1.ses and jilavms.ses the X-Session files. These also go into the same location.
NOTE: Starting with Version 14, if you have previously copied these files you need to replace them with new ones!!! This is because these files are complete configuration files, everything you might set in Xconfig. Because of the “Xconfig Server Visual Color” issue mentioned above you need to copy the new files or you will not be able to connect to any RHEL5 machines.
Now double-click on each of the .xcfg file in turn. This will start a program called Xconfig with this configuration file. It will also read in your current machine monitor settings. Just click on File, Save As and save the files back out to the same location and name. Click OK to overwrite. This will save all the settings needed but also get your monitor settings rather than the settings for the machine that originally saved the file.
2) 2VMS and 2Linux - These are shortcuts to be placed on your desktop as needed. Right-click on one and take a look at the Target information. Way at the end of the command line you will see information like
....-f exceedvms.xcfg
This is telling Exceed to start up and use the configuration file ‘exceedvms.xcfg’ which will have the keyboard definitions for VMS machines. Similar for Linux. Specifically, it will have the proper key definitions for Backspace to delete characters.
2jilau1 and 2jilavms - These are similar to the 2VMS and 2Linux in that they too go on your desktop as needed. However they point to the .ses X-Session file and start up for the specific hosts. Note that once copied to your desktop you may have to edit them and if necessary change the path specified in the Target and Start In fields to have your username. Since these point to the .ses files that path includes your user name in the path. Some systems do this for you automatically but check to be sure.
If you now double click on one of these shortcuts, it will start Exceed with the proper keyboard mappings for the host you intend to connect to.
jilau1.ses and Similar Files, how to make your own:
If you regularly connect to specific machines you can make desktop icons that will connect directly to those machine’s login window without first popping up the XDMCP Chooser window. Earlier you copied a file called “jilau1.ses” to your personal application data folder for Exceed. Browse to this file and Right-Click drag and drop it to the desktop. When prompted select “Create Shortcut Here”. Do NOT just copy the file, you need to make it a shortcut. Now Right-Click that new shortcut and select Properties.
- First under the General tab, rename it to be something like “2jilau1".
- Under the Shortcut tab note that it is pointing to the file in your personal settings area.
Now when you click on the new shortcut it should take you directly to the jilau1 login.
You can do the same for any machine by just creating duplicates of the file “jilau1.ses” and calling them something like “yotta.ses” for example. These are actually just plain Text files. So Right-Click on your duplicate file and select Open With and open it with something like Notepad so that it is being edited in plain text. Do NOT use Wordpad or MS Word that writes out non-ASCII Text. Browse down the file to the line
Host=
and change to be the desired host name. In our example here it would be
Host=yotta.colorado.edu
Notice that this file is also specifying the configuration file for linux or VMS configuration, change that as needed. Save the new session file and just make another desktop icon pointing to it as we did above for jilau1.
Some Extra Comments:
In the standard installation, the ToolBar is turned on. The ToolBar is an option that can be toggled on/off. When Exceed is running you will have an Exceed icon on your Windows Taskbar. Right Click on it once, Select Tools, and then ToolBar to check/uncheck the Show option. Other options can be set here too.
Firewall Issues:
[Vista users, also see the note at the top of this document in addition to these instructions.]
If you have a firewall on your machine, and you should, you will need to make some exceptions to allow Exceed to get through. If you have a firewall that allows granularity of settings, like Outpost, you can make an Application rule for the executable
"C:\Program Files\Hummingbird\Connectivity\xx.00\Exceed\Exceed.exe"
with rules
TCP In for local ports 16001, 7000, 6000,and 22(ssh)
TCP Out for local ports 7000, 6000,and 22(ssh)
UDP In and Out for local port 16001
UDP In and Out for local port 177
You may prefer to make a single rule allowing all UDP In and Out, this will cover all the XDMCP Broadcast issues.
For the executable
"C:\Program Files\Hummingbird\Connectivity\##.00\Exceed\Xstart.exe"
make the rule
TCP In and Out for port 22(ssh)
Finally you will need to make a System level, not just the Exceed Applications, rule to allow
TCP In and Out 16001 (Linux exit-beep bypass)
In Windows Firewall there is little granularity and you can’t attache the port usage to an application. So you will just need to make rules to allow the two executables and then just add in the port rules to anyone that wants to use them.
NOTE:
If you do not intend to install the Security Shell (SSH) part, please skip to the section on doing the update.
Hummingbird SecureConnectivity - a.k.a. SSH
We now have a 10 seat license for Exceed specific Secure Shell which allow us to make an SSH-2 type connection so that all over-the-wire information is encrypted and protected, even your login and password. This is not really necessary for use within our JILA subnets, but for example if you plan to use Exceed on a laptop away from JILA then this is strongly suggested. If you wish to use this please see the separate installation instructions at
http://jilawww.colorado.edu/~dunwell/installs/secureconnectivity.htm
Update:
Due to the nature of the type of installation provided by Hummingbird, it is necessary to keep the central copy on the N: file server at the original distribution Patch Level-0. Your initial installation of Exceed and Secure Shell will be at Level-0 and it is necessary to patch them to the most recent level. This can be done by
http://support.hummingbird.com/customer/
to access the Hummingbird web site and get the latest patches. This site will require you to create a login account, do so and save the information for future use. You can get downloaded patches and generate service requests from this site. When you patch Exceed it will patch both Exceed and the ssh installations at the same time.