RE: [TCLUG:12935] Remote X (client/server rant)

["Eric Hillman" <ehillman@cccu.com>]

> Chris McKinley said:
> > right, and the client is actually running on the remote system.
>
> ...and is getting its directions from the user, who is sitting at
> the local
> system.  The display requests may be coming from the remote system, but
> they're in response to activity requests initiated by the user and passed
> through the I/O apparatus on the local system.

No, they're in response to activity requests from programs that sit on the
remote system, like telnetd or bash.

Typically, in order to initiate an X session on a remote machine I have to
telnet to that machine and tell it to fire up rxvt or xpat2 or whatever.  I
am running a telnet client, and am sending commands to a telnet server,
which in turn fires up an X client, and tells it to connect to my X server.

The terminology is confusing at first, but from a networking/programming
perspective, it's perfectly correct, and is vital to understanding how X
works in the first place.

Another persuasive argument might be this -- typically a client connects to
one server, but a server serves lots of clients.  Likewise, you can run X
client programs on a host of machines, but they all talk to one X server,
but one X client can't simultaneously connect to multiple X servers.

It helps if you think of it from the program's point of view.  "Client" does
not, in any way, imply "human".


--
Eric Hillman
UNIX Sysadmin
City & County Credit Union
ehillman@cccu.com