Slow Thin Clients

[Kevin Kinsey]

Lee Harr wrote:

> Hi;
>
> I am using FreeBSD-5.3 as a terminal server for a few thin client 
> machines.
> I have the inside network interface configured so:
>
> ifconfig_xl0="inet 172.16.0.1 netmask 255.255.0.0 media 100baseTX 
> mediaopt full-duplex"
>
> and the outside interface is from DHCP.
>
> The clients are configured similarly 172.16.0.2, 172.16.0.3, etc.
>
> In the /etc/hosts files, I have:
>
> 172.16.0.1      tserv
> 172.16.0.2      gu2
> 172.16.0.3      gu3
>
> /etc/nsswitch.conf is the default:
>
> group: compat
> group_compat: nis
> hosts: files dns
> networks: files
> passwd: compat
> passwd_compat: nis
> shells: files
>
>
> I am using kdm and xdmcp to connect. When the client connects I get
> a message that says:
>
> "DNS spoof attempt or misconfigured resolver."
>
> The main symptom though is that programs are extremely slow to start
> up, and menus react very slowly.
>
> I am connected through a hub (not a switch) but I have had this system
> set up like this before (using FreeBSD 4.8) and it was much more
> responsive.
>
> What am I missing?
>

I don't know.  You may have already discovered that this error message
comes from kdebase/kdm/backend/xdmcp.c, apparently from a routine
that, not unexpectedly, is attempting to resolve hostnames from a
network address.

I don't read C well enough to even know what might be happening here.
It might be interesting to know if any machines were attempting to use
IPv6.  It appears that "ossi" removed support for IPv6 from xdm last April,
because, according to the commit log, it was "not perfect, particularly on
anything but Solaris".  I don't know if that's out of date now, or not.

Now, FreeBSD 5 generally has IPv6 "out of the box", so I wonder ...
but as I said, I'm in way over my head on this one.

Have you tried a kde users list?  Or maybe the freebsd-x11 one?

Kevin Kinsey