Thumbnail missing on fat client

Hello George,

1. The live thumbnails start showing when a user logs in on a client, thus starting a session-wide epoptes-client. Please manually run /usr/sbin/epoptes-client from a terminal on a logged in client and paste here any errors/messages you may see. If by doing that, you see a "...done" message, and thumbnails appear on epoptes, it means that everything is fine except that for some reason epoptes-client is not automatically started when a user logs in.

2. If your server is 64-bit and since your epoptes version is 0.5.7, you may be affected by bug #1341278. This is fixed in 0.5.8, so could you please add our stable PPA to your sources by running:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:epoptes

and then updating epoptes to 0.5.8 by running:
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade epoptes

and see if you can Wake-on-LAN your clients.

Excuse me, the first command should be:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:epoptes

I forgot to mention that I'm running 64bit on the Ubuntu. I upgraded to 0.5.8, and that has fixed the remote boot issue. No change on the thumbnails. Below is the session:

gaburdo@lb220-h5:~$ /usr/sbin/epoptes-client
 * Epoptes-client connecting to lb220-teach:789... epoptes-client ERROR:
The epoptes certificate file, /etc/epoptes/server.crt, doesn't exist.
You can fetch the server certificate by running:
/usr/sbin/epoptes-client -c
gaburdo@lb220-h5:~$ /usr/sbin/epoptes-client -c
epoptes-client ERROR: Need to be root to fetch the certificate
gaburdo@lb220-h5:~$ sudo /usr/sbin/epoptes-client -c
[sudo] password for gaburdo:
depth=0 C = AU, ST = Some-State, O = Internet Widgits Pty Ltd
verify error:num=18:self signed certificate
verify return:1
depth=0 C = AU, ST = Some-State, O = Internet Widgits Pty Ltd
verify return:1
DONE
Successfully fetched certificate from lb220-teach:789
gaburdo@lb220-h5:~$

If I fetch the certificate using epoptes-client -c as sudo, I also get a success message.

Currently all functions other than thumbnail are working on the systems I have updated. (The systems on 0.5.7 won't connect.)

George

UPDATE: On systems where I had not installed 0.5.7, but instead installed 0.5.8 directly, I have a new behavior:
- I have all functions except for the icon not identifying that state of the machine. In other words, The icon always shows that the machine is turned off until someone logs in, then the thumbnail shows. When they log out, I get the grey power switch icon regardless of whether the machine is on or off.
-On the previously installed clients, I have tried using apt-get remove, and apt-get purge, before installing again, but it behaves as before: Grey icon when off, red icon when on or some one is logged into the system. Other functions are working.

In the title you mention: fat client, but in your question you mention "red screen". Does red screen mean the red epoptes icon for standalone clients? So, first things first, are you on an LTSP installation with fat LTSP clients or are the clients standalone?

In any case when you see a computer with an "std", "fat", or "thin" icon in epoptes, it means that the root epoptes-client is running and connecting properly, when you see live thumbnails, it means that the session (per-user) epoptes-client is running and connecting properly.

In your case it's probably a misconfiguration of epoptes-client starting automatically. Have you been playing with any autostart settings?

We may investigate your issue better in IRC, if you want you can go to Epoptes → Help → Live chat (IRC) and ping me. My nick is Phantomas.

In the case you don't want/cannot use IRC, please provide the following information:

1. Are you running LTSP or are the clients standalone?

2. If the clients are standalone, open a terminal on a client and paste the output of:
ps aux | grep epoptes

3. If the clients are standalone, and you manually run on a client (also paste the output):
sudo epoptes-client
does it show that the client is online on Epoptes?

If you also run (on a second terminal window):
epoptes-client (without sudo)
do you see thumbnails of the client on Epoptes?

In the case you get a certificate error, run sudo epoptes-client -c and repeat question 3.

4. After installing epoptes-client on the clients, did you reboot them?

5. Did you change any startup options after installing epoptes-client?

These are standalone clients, though I will be experimenting with fat LTSP clients in another lab in a couple of weeks.

The clients that I had installed 0.5.7 (and those that have been upgraded to 0.5.8) always show the red “std” icon when powered up. This shows even when a student is logged in and using the system. I can preform all other functions, just the thumbnail and complete label aren't working properly. On labels, I have selected “Computer (user)” and it always shows just the computer name. When these systems are turned off, Then I get the gray power icon.

On clients that I installed 0.5.8 (no prior installation of 0.5.7), I see the gray power switch regardless of the system being powered down, or powered up but no user. When a user logs in, then I get the thumbnail and the full label of Computer(user).

Here's a link to a partial screen shot of the teacher's console:
https://drive.google.com/a/grantmagnet.net/file/d/0B4FIfPX9fjXXRDMtRElxdnRSdFk/view?usp=sharing

E3 is in use (original 0.5.8 install) showing thumbnail
F1 is in use (upgraded to 0.5.8) (same icon appears in either usage state) showing red “std”
H2 is powered up, but no user logged in (original 0.5.8 install) showing grey power switch
H3 is in use (original 0.5.8 install) showing thumbnail

From teacher's machine:

gaburdo@LB220-teach:~$ ps aux | grep epoptes
root 1016 0.2 0.3 81776 12932 ? S 06:08 0:45 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/twistd --pidfile /var/run/epoptes.pid --logfile /var/log/epoptes.log epoptes
gaburdo 7951 0.0 0.0 15940 940 pts/1 S+ 11:10 0:00 grep --color=auto epoptes
gaburdo@LB220-teach:~$

From client machine:

gaburdo@lb220-d5:~$ ps aux | grep epoptes
root      1186  0.0  0.0  21832  2584 ?        S    10:42   0:00 socat openssl-connect:lb220-teach:789,cafile=/etc/epoptes/server.crt,interval=60,forever EXEC:bash -c \"exec -a epoptes-client sh\"
root      1358  0.0  0.0   4440   716 ?        S    10:42   0:00 epoptes-client
gaburdo   3574  0.0  0.0  11744   928 pts/7    S+   11:06   0:00 grep --color=auto epoptes
gaburdo@lb220-d5:~$

gaburdo@lb220-d5:~$ sudo epoptes-client
[sudo] password for gaburdo:
* Epoptes-client connecting to lb220-teach:789...                                                               ...done.

I did perform a reboot after installation.
No startup options have been changed.
I'm a classroom teacher, with network experience, though short on linux experience. This has been a hectic year, so chats are likely out of the picture (I have spent the last three hours trying to get this together in between questions.)

Thanks

epoptes-client is designed to run both as root (this is how you can see the red standalone icon) *and* as user, for each user logged in on the client pc (this is how you can see the thumbnails, and the username label).

We achieve that, by using ifup hooks for the root epoptes-client instance, and by an /etc/xdg/autostart entry for a per-user epoptes-clients.

I tested in a fresh 14.04.1 Ubuntu installation. Installing epoptes-client, and rebooting worked out of the box, with thumbnails showing normally and icons too.

" F1 is in use (upgraded to 0.5.8) (same icon appears in either usage state) showing red “std” "
In this case, according to the output of ps aux, on the client machine you ran it, epoptes-client is running only as root, that's why you probably don't see thumbnails in this client (lb220-d5). This means that for some reason epoptes-client is not automatically starting when your user logs in. Please make sure that Epoptes client service is checked in Ubuntu's Startup Applications dialog in this computer. If it's not checked, someone unchecked it for that user.

" H2 is powered up, but no user logged in (original 0.5.8 install) showing grey power switch"
In this case, the opposite of F1 applies: root epoptes-client is not running, but user epoptes-client is. Please confirm by running ps aux | grep epoptes on this client too when logged in. Also try manually running sudo epoptes-client, to see if the root client fails to connect for some reason.

Regarding the chat, I'm pretty sure we would both have saved at least a couple of hours if we could test things live and pinpoint the misconfiguration in your setup instead of writing essay-sized replies here. Please note that the screenshot you are providing is not public, therefore I cannot see it. Also you didn't execute epoptes-client as a user (without sudo) in another terminal as I described in my reply (3d step), therefore I still don't have a complete image of what's going on.

All these probably consume 5x more time for both of us than live troubleshooting, time that you could have spent in enjoying epoptes' features, and me developing more of them. :)

Thanks for the prompt and complete answers. I've solved the issue through a manner of re-installation and it's working nicely now.

Great Product and support. I'm not a programmer, but is there some other type of support you could use?

Good to hear that you solved the issues you had.

Some valuable ways to help the project except code patches, are bug reports for issues that you may find not working as supposed. Also, translations, if it happens to know any other language than English. Writing a success story in a blog/forum and spreading the word about epoptes if you enjoy it also helps other people to find about it and use it.