KDE ksysguardd on the Linkstation

From NAS-Central Buffalo - The Linkstation Wiki

Latest revision as of 02:26, 11 September 2007

Introduction

KDE's ksysguard GUI application is a client which connects to the ksysguardd (daemon part of ksysguard) which is either running already, or is started only on demand. Of course, the ksysguardd deamon can also run on a remote machine, like the Linkstation.

Setup

The easiest way to establish the connection was remotely starting ksysguardd on password-less ssh session issued by the ksysguard viewer itself, as a non-privileged user on the server. Don't know to what extent there could be security issues with this setup in a LAN, but if you're an expert please read on and comment/feedback anything you think is done stupidly.

Prerequisites

To actually make it run, the user ksysguard with the login shell /usr/bin/ksysguardd should exist on the linkstation. Therefore, issue the following commands:

 groupadd ksysguard
 useradd -s /usr/bin/ksysguardd -g ksysguard ksysguard
 mkdir -p /home/ksysguard

To be able to let ksysguard connect in a password-less ssh session as the user 'ksysguard' to the daemon from your desktop, you should generate a public key on your desktop account:

 ssh-keygen -t dsa

This will generate a pair of keys in your ~/.ssh/ directory.

Setup on the server

Now you have to append the public key you just generated from ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub on your account on the desktop machine, to the /home/ksysguard/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the server (the linkstation), and then also adjust ownership of the entire ksysguard home directory:

 chown -R ksysguard:ksysguard ksysguard

Setup on the client

To test the password-less ssh session as user ksysguard to your remote server's hostname, just issue from your desktop account:

 ssh -l ksysguard hostname

This should immediatly get you into the ksysguardd prompt without requesting a password, where you can try issuing the commands test, monitors and quit,which will also log you out since ksysguardd is the shell for the ksysguard user. If that worked, in your dektop client ksysguard application, connect to the linkstation's hostname using the same custom command as above.

Now your ksysguard application should be connected to the daemon, all you have to do is define new worksheets on which you drag sensors from the remote machine's tree.

Screenshots

Linkstation Pro Genlink processes

Linkstation Pro Genlink system load

Download

On non-Gentoo, you can try the binary ksysguardd located here. If you need the patched sources, please ping the forum thread. On Genlink, make sure you synced the Linkstation overlay to the latest version:

 layman -S

Emerge the binary:

 emerge sys-apps/ksysguard -KG

For problems/feedback/suggestions, please ping the forum thread.

Have fun!

--Zoolook 07:49, 27 February 2007 (EST)