Using XOrg on a FreeBSD Server

[Julian H. Stacey]

> From:		Oliver Fromme <olli at lurza.secnetix.de> 

Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Logan Moore <logan at xentac.com> wrote:
>  > I've set up FreeBSD on one of my servers, and I have a nice 24" 1920x1200
>  > monitor plugged into it. It seems a shame to be  wasting such a decent
>  > monitor on a simple black and white terminal, so I've been contemplating
>  > installing XOrg on the server to get a bit of extra functionality from the
>  > terminals. I'm not thinking KDE or Gnome... just a simple window manager
>  > like one of the *box's or even just straight up xdm running terminals and
>  > maybe some basic GUI tools like a text editor/file manager.
> 
> I would connect the monitor to a machine where it is more
> useful, i.e. a PC or workstation, and let the server run
> headless.

Yes.  Same on remote servers & home gateways. No X.

SUID 0 programs accumulate with X, & more libs indexed by ldconfig to trust.

Some older servers have little memory.  X servers hog memory:
	Some have memory leaks I've heard, 
	mine just starts bloated, `top` shows SIZE=167 Meg,
	RES=73548K, but doesn`t leak worse after that.
	(1600x1200 & xdm & fvwm with 24 panels, eg 4 x FvwmPagerLabel each
		 with DeskTopSize     3x2     # wide x high	)
	Even if some X will get swapped out if inactive, I suppose
	vibrating a mouse could swap out tons of processes & zap
	server response.

I've had workstations where the graphics card locked the machine
up, & needed a cold reboot to clear it (& or a replacement) The
less to go wrong in a server the better, especially if there's no
one there 24/7 to reset. ( eg best also have no SLIP, PLIP, USB to external
devices, no CDROM drives that accelerate hard & pull power rails etc).

+ if you ever get frustrated (eg with some xauth, dns, ipfw, configs
that don't play), & want to do a quick dirty debug with "xhost +"
better not expose your display on a public server.

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey: BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
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