What has Thin Guy been up to?  Here's a hint.

When we were designing the Sun Ray Connector for Windows, we made a conscious decision not to allow users to send the password via the command line.

Why you may ask?  Perhaps this will shed some light.

$ ps -ef |grep rdesktop
craig 20344 20334 0 20:16:48 ? 0:00 /opt/SUNWrdp/bin/rdesktop -a 24 -f -u craig -p SunRay123 margaritaville

steve 20123 20111 0 20:16:45 ? 0:00 /opt/SUNWrdp/bin/rdesktop -a 24 -f -u steve -p T3mecu!a margaritaville

For those that don't understand the above concern, it means that anyone who has access to run "ps" can read the password should someone choose to pass it on the command line.  That pretty much means anyone who is logged on to the *nix server.

If you want to safely pass the password to the Sun Ray Windows Connector (or RDesktop for that matter) from the command line, you can do so with expect.

#!/opt/sfw/bin/expect
spawn /opt/SUNWuttsc/bin/uttsc -m -A 24 -u craig -p Margaritaville
sleep 1
expect "Password: "
send "SunRay123\r\n"
wait $spawn_id
#end of script

This will allow you to safely send the password via a script and not worry about snoopy people out there.

Hope that helps!

While Jonathan was somewhat taken aback by a prospective customers knowledge of Solaris (and Sun in general), I'm not at all suprised that not very many people know there is a growing OEM market for Sun Rays.  What's more is that two of first OEM's created laptop form factor Sun Rays.  I recently had a comment in my other blog that suggested a laptop Sun Ray would be a great idea.

Tadpole makes a 12" and 15" Sun Ray laptop called the Comet.


NatureTech not only makes desktop Sun Ray called the NC200, in the future they will also be making a notebook Sun Ray called the NC320.

(Unfortunately due to the design of the Naturetech website, I can't provide links directly to the products)

All the notebooks support wireless and all are quite nice.  Mobility with hot desking, plus added mobility with the tried and true combination of WiFi and a notebook form factor.

I own the 15" Tadpole and have been very happy with it.  It allows me the freedom to do all the work I do on Sun Rays from anywhere my WiFi signal reaches.

Interesting conversation with a customer today about his air conditioning and desktop expansion plans.

Cost to upgrade several existing rooms to become classroom labs with PCs would be 1,000,000 for the air con upgrades, plus the cost of the PCs.

Cost to upgrade those rooms and the server room for a Sun Ray set up would be 600,000 for AC and around 400,000 - the Sun Rays generate less heat and pay for themselves in reduced AC costs alone.

Add to that 12V, 4 Watt power consumption and it's a no brainer.

While there are a bunch of pics out there of the two new Sun Ray models, I haven't seen any that compare the size of the Sun Ray 1g to the Sun Ray 2.  Our marketing folks sent one around a few weeks ago, finally getting around to posting it.

Sun Ray Software 4 was released today.  Don't get confused with the naming conventions, this is not a "new version" of Sun Ray Server Software nor is it Sun Remote Services.  What can I say, naming comes from marketing.

SRS 4 includes:
Sun Ray Server Software 3.1 with the -03 of the product patch revision
Sun Ray Connector for Windows 1.0 (Sun's fully licensed RDP Client)
Sun Desktop Manager 1.0

DL for free here: http://www.sun.com/software/sunray/get.xml

Remember Sun Ray Software is free to use for everyone.  If you want support you can purchase Right To Use (RTU) licenses and support.  Same story for Sun Secure Global Desktop Server.

Nice review of the Sun Ray 2FS in eWeek.

Nice to see two articles on Bristol Council's switch to StarOffice. Not strictly thin client related, I know, but hopefully of interest to ThinkThin readers. Well done to the UK Desktop team.

FYI,

The newest patches for Sun Ray Core Services 3.1 were released yesterday.

They can be downloaded at http://sunsolve.sun.com

These are the "release" versions of the T-Patches bundled with the SRS 4 Beta (-02) plus a couple of small fixes.

• 120879-03 - SPARC
• 120880-03 - x86
• 120881-03 - Linux

Bug fixes include:

(from 120880-03)
6376242 utauthd core dump seen on  Solaris 8 system (also duplicate utauthd processes on running systems)
6380565 3rd party license readme distribution update
 
(from 120880-02)
6383912 utxconfig constrains X desktop dimensions to unreasonably low values
6351087 Regression: Xsun spins in Sun Ray DDX
6327741 pam.conf is not updated correctly causing login problems
6393502 Sun Ray firmware needs to report smartcard ATR history length as well.
6385918 SRSS needs to support Belgian eID smartcard
6397106 GemPlus GPK16000 cards and newer JCOP21 cards need to be supported
6331518 Sun Ray Server Software (SRSS) should support GEM+/GEM Expresso (64V2N) smartcards
6398942 TCP connections can fail when initialization sequence is irregular
6348306 Add tool to administer licenses
6399779 sometimes uttsc core dumps while hotdesking
6342142 Sunray NSCM greeter not working with ldap (naming services) password management.
6375196 libutmedia only does 15 fps with Sun Ray 2
 
(from 120880-01)
6319180 utxconfig is insufficently paranoid
6238984 utseriald dumps core after resetting the DTU connected with serial adapter
6328992 utauthd eats 2 file descriptors when a fork fails
6325171 ndbm database corruption causes utdesktop and authd to core dump.
6316937 DTU hangs and power cycles when trying to send data using loopback cables with SR 170 embedded ports
6311482 Restart of Sun Ray services from Admin GUI using netscape7 is not working as expected
6346040 Update smartcard config files to work with new versions of cards
5060424 DTUs not getting configured MTU from LAN Sunray Server
6254552 ISO 7816-4 Case 1 APDU problem
6330608 2 authd running on the same box,  (parent and child) causing authd to hang and all DTU get 26 error
6354786 Restart not working from Admin GUI after patch installation.
6344009 Alt-tab doesn't work after they upgrade Sunray SW from 3.0 to 3.1
6344241 After upgrading from SRSS 3.0 to 3.1 the Num Lock and Shift keys don't work via IOGear KVM
6337859 utadm -A or -a does not always work

Alexandros Kofteros, a Cypriot teacher, is working to change the way computers are used in the classroom.

Instead of 'computers' being used to teach kids how to type, write an email or use a spreadsheet, he's looking into how to embed them into the curriculum and use IT as a teaching tool - much like one might use a pen, paper and books.

As with any educational environment, cost of ownership, manageability and - dare I say it - politics, can be more of an issue than in the commercial world. Thin clients and open source software go a long way to meeting his requirements.

I think Sun Ray meets many of his needs. He's taking a very open approach and is evaluating a number of solutions in a very even-handed manner.

You can read his 'Open Education' reports here. Check out the great pics of the kids using their Sun Ray 170s!

So you may have all ready seen other blog postings about this, but we have new Sun Ray Clients. I first read about them on an internal feed and then I saw them over on the Unix Admin Corner. Talk about sweet new hardware.

With the 'economical' end and work my way from there. The Sun Ray 2 is one of 2 follow ons to the Sun Ray 1g. It is smaller, uses less power, and is less expensive. It includes 2 USB 1.1 ports (1 front and 1 back), 1 serial port, 1 headphone jack, 1 microphone jack, 1 Line In jack, and, of course, 1 100BaseT RJ45 ethernet port. It supports up to 1600x1200/32-bit color resolution via a single DVI port, and is RoHS compliant. It also includes a SIM slot in the top, for future functionality. The form factor is a tall, thin rectangular box sitting on a solid weighted rectangular base.

The Sun Ray 2FS, the second follow on to the Sun Ray 1g, is a higher end, higher security unit. It includes 3 USB 2.0 ports (1 front, 2 back), 1 serial port, 1 headphone jack, 1 microphone jack, 1 Line In jack, and, of course, 1 100BaseT RJ45 ethernet port. It also includes 2 DVI ports, supporting a dual head Xinerama configuration with a single Sun Ray unit. It also includes 1 100Base-FX optical ethernet port. This is of interest to those who are very concerned with security. It also has a SIM slot on the top for future functionality. It supports up to 1920x1200/32-bit color resolution from both ports simultaneously, and is RoHS compliant. The form factor is very similar to the Sun Ray 2, but a little deeper. The cool part is the dual head Xinerama functionality works out of the box without having to wait for a software update.

Both units have moved from a standard AC power cord to an external AC power brick. While the current Sun Ray DTUs have a Line Out jack, this has been dropped in the Sun Ray 2 family of DTUs.

Think Thin

Sun Ray Software 4 Beta is available today!

Check it out.

Sun Ray Software 4 is a suite of Sun Ray components:

• Sun Ray Server Software 3.1
• Sun Desktop Manager 1.0
• Sun Ray Connector for Windows 1.0

Some Sun Ray deployments require having data on the screen at all times. The DTUs are being used for monitoring the current state of something or displaying reference data.

In these scenarios it is important that the screens are always active, and usually there is no mouse or keyboard to wake them from power saving/screen saver mode.

When used in CAM mode to connect to Windows, there are two screen blanks that can happen, one through the X server on the Sun Ray server and one with the Windows screensaver. The Windows screensaver is easily fixed with right-click on background and choose "None" on the sceensaver tab.

Since in CAM mode there is no GUI to configure the X screensaver, the xset command with the appropriate entries needs to be run after the X Session is started.

The solution is to add a line to the beginning of your CAM application script to execute the "xset" command before launching the interop client. (SRCW, SGD, etc.)

The correct command is:

xset -dpms -fbpm s off

After adding this line to your CAM script, any new sessions will get the change but old sessions will need to be reset to receive the change.

/opt/SUNWut/sbin/utrestart -c

This currently is an all or nothing fix. It will turn off the sceensaving feature for all users at once. You could configure the Windows screensaver to blank the screen after a period of time for individual users, but this will not let the DTU go into low power mode.

There is the possibility of using a script similar to the Folllow-me-printing script to enable/disable screen blanking on a per-DTU basis if necessary.

This is part one in a series of scalability testing of Sun Rays as Windows Based Terminals

One of the most common requests we get in Sun Ray Engineering is for scalability numbers of Sun Ray Server running full screen Windows session in Controlled Access Mode (aka Kiosk Mode).  While most thin client folks know sizing Windows terminal varies greatly not only due to different application sets, user types, etc. in a Sun Ray environment there is another type of sizing to consider.   The server selected to act as the Sun Ray Server is also going to have a very big impact on scalabilty and performance.  As you can imagine, a v100 is going to be slower and not run as many sessions as x4100 would.

Currently the most asked about servers with regards to Sun Ray Server Sizing are the CoolThreads which run the UltraSPARC T1 chip.  While floating point is a weakness for this chip, we're not doing any by just running a RDP or Citrix client.  This chip is a process/thread monster and a lot of users equals a lot of processes.  One would think we could get a lot of users on one of these servers running fullscreen Windows in CAM mode, bringing the Sun Ray cost model even lower than it already is.  But thinking about it and proving it are two different things.  We need to walk the walk and prove it.  I'll be documenting these tests and methodologies in a series of blog posts starting with this one.

Scalability testing can be a pain.  Luckily, Sun Ray Server and CAM makes this particular test easy to accomplish.  There are two ways to go about generating load on the Sun Ray Server, using a lot of smart cards or a lot of Sun Rays.

The first is the most common which is to have a few Sun Rays and a bunch of Smart Cards.  Insert the smart card to initiate the session, then remove it and insert another.  Lather, rinse, repeat until you have the desired number of sessions on the server. The downside to this approach is that you don't generate a true network load from the Sun Ray Server to the Sun Ray.  Even though the smart card is removed the sessions keeps chugging away on the server so you get good data on server load however, so at least in this regard this method is valid.

The second method is to have several hundred Sun Rays at your disposal.  While many customers have 1000's of Sun Rays, not many have them deployed in a lab environment.  Luckily, we have this environment at Sun in our Sun Ray Engineering labs.  We've nicknamed these racks and racks of Sun Rays "Death Valley".  As each Sun Ray comes up it connects to the Sun Ray server and runs your CAM script.
 
In these tests our CAM script will initiate a Windows Terminal Server session via RDP or ICA and run applications using tools such as AutoIT, Winbench, or WinTask.  My favorite is AutoIT, not only because it is powerful, but because it is Free!  Citrix also has their own test suite called the Citrix Server Test Kit (CSTK) , however it is only useable if coming in via ICA connections so it won't work with RDP.  Brian Madden has a great how to on his site regarding what to test and what to look for on the Windows side of the houser on his website.  Check it out, it's great info.

But before you can launch an automated scripting tool, you need each Sun Ray login to the windows server.  Since you don't want to have to run around and type in 300 or more usernames and passwords, you'll want to automate this.  So what username should be used?  I'm sure a lot of folks would think to just use the same username for all the connections.  Possible?  Sure, as long as you change the default behavior of Terminal server to restrict each user to one session.  However, I've never been a fan of using the same username for all connection on terminal server.  Moreover I believe the process of creating the users profile, copying down roaming profiles, accessing different file structures, etc lends more authenticity to a sizing test.  Another consideration to consider is that certain applications only allow  each user to run one instance of the applications, for this alone you'll need each session to be logged in with a unique username.

So how do we have each Sun Ray session present a different username to Windows?  When Sun Ray server is in  Controlled Access Mode, each Sun Ray automatically logs in with a locked account that gets configured when CAM is enabled via utconfig.    The names of these accounts by default are utcu0 - utcuxxx, depending on how many CAM users you told utconfig to create.  So from an automation standpoint the easiest thing to do is to use the $USER variable of the unix session as the windows username and pass that argument in your CAM script.  With RDesktop your command line argument would look like -u $USER  and with Citrix it would look like this -username $USER.

So we need to create a lot of user accounts in Windows that match up to the CAM User ID.  Not only that, but we want to set the password as well and make sure that the user is enabled.    Sounds like a lot of work, but fortunately we can automate this too.  Here are a couple examples of methods I use.

Active Directory

With Windows Server 2003 Microsoft released a great utility called dsadd which is a godsend to those who were heavy into windows scripting host and ADSI.  In this script you will have to change your FQDN and the OU that you want the users created it.  Bold text marks the entries to change.  This example will create 500 users starting at utcu0 through utcu499.  Create text file called AddADUsers.cmd and paste the following into that file.  Note that there are no line breaks, it must be one line.

FOR /L %%i in (0,1,500) DO dsadd user "cn=utcu%%i,ou=Test,dc=corona,dc=sfbay,dc=sun,dc=com" -samid utcu%%i -upn utcu%%i@corona.sfbay.sun.com -fn CAM -ln User%%i -display "CAM User%%i" -pwd SunRay123 -disabled no

Stand Alone Server(s)

If you are using a stand alone server(s) (i.e. not part of a AD Domain), you can use a vbscript that uses a CSV file to import the username, Full Name, Password, Description, and whether or not they are an administrator

First is the vb script called CreateLocalUsers.vbs.  The only two things you would need to change on this is the server name an the location of your csv file.  I've bolded the two parts you would want to change.

'Bulk Create Local User v1.0
''
'-----------
'Description
'-----------
'Bulk Create Local User is a script to automate the creation of multiple local users from a CSV file
'This is especially useful for duplication of users between standalone servers and workstations.
'
'To use this, you need to create a CSV file in C:\ called USERS.CSV.
'
'The fields for USERS.CSV are as follows
'
'UserName,Fullname,Password,Description,AdminTrueFalse
'
'eg. TestUser,Test User,mytestpassword,A Test User for the local machine,True
'
'Only UserName and Fullname are mandatory. If you choose not to use other fields, you must retain the commas, so:
'
'Leaving out all but Username and Fullname: TestUser,Test User,,,,
'Leaving out just the description: TestUser, Test User,password,,0
'
'The AdminTrueFalse field, if set to True, will add the user to the local Administrators group. The value for this field can be True, False, 1, or 0.
'If the Password field is left blank, a password of password will be set.
'
'A log file will be created, C:\usersresults.TXT, which will permit review of the users created. This file includes information on whether the password
'was customized (ie. not set to password), whether a description was set, and whether the user was made an Administrator.

'----------------
'Revision History
'----------------
'v1.0 Created

Option Explicit
Dim FSO, CSVFile, LogFile, User, UserObject, Computer, X, UsersCreated, UserAttributes, Data, UserName, Fullname, Password, Description, Result, IsAdmin
Dim AdminGroup, UserGroup, CreateUser
Const Computername = "WINTS-3"

SET FSO=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
SET Computer= GetObject("WinNT://"&Computername&",computer")
SET AdminGroup = GetObject("WinNT://"&Computername&"/Administrators,group")
SET UserGroup = GetObject("WinNT://"&Computername&"/Users,group")

Computer.Filter = Array("user")

UserName = ""
Password = ""
FullName = ""
Description = ""

Set CSVFile = fso.OpenTextFile("C:\users.csv",1)
Set LogFile = fso.OpenTextFile("C:\usersresults.TXT",2,True)
X = 0
UsersCreated=0

Do While CSVFile.AtEndOfStream <> True
 Result = ""
 
 X = X + 1
 Data = CSVFile.Readline
 UserAttributes = Split(Data, ",")
 If Ubound(UserAttributes,1) >= 4 Then
  IsAdmin = False

  UserName = UserAttributes(0)
  Fullname = UserAttributes(1)
  Password = UserAttributes(2)
  Description = UserAttributes(3)
  IsAdmin = UserAttributes(4)
  If Not (IsAdmin = "False") and Not (IsAdmin = "True") and Not (IsAdmin = "0") and Not (IsAdmin = "1") Then IsAdmin = False
  CreateUser = True

  For Each UserObject In Computer
   If UCASE(UserObject.name) = UCASE(UserName) Then
    LogFile.Writeline("User "&Username&" ("&Fullname&") already existed.")
    CreateUser = False
   End If
  Next

  If CreateUser Then
   Set User = Computer.Create("user", UserName)
   If Password <> "" Then User.SetPassword Password else User.SetPassword "password"
   If Description <> "" Then User.Description = Description
   User.Fullname = Fullname
   User.SetInfo

   UserGroup.Add User.ADsPath
   If IsAdmin Then AdminGroup.Add User.ADsPath

   Result = UserName&" ("&Fullname&") was created. "
   If Password <> "" Then Result = Result + "Password was given a custom entry." else Result = Result + "Password was set to ""password""."
   If Description <> "" Then Result = Result + " Description was set."
   If IsAdmin Then Result = Result + " User was made a member of Administrators."
   Result = Result + Chr(13)
   LogFile.Writeline(Result)
   UsersCreated = UsersCreated + 1
  End If
 Else
  LogFile.Writeline("The entry on line "&X&" has less than 5 elements (Username,Fullname,Password,Description,AdminTrueFalse) and will not be processed.")
  LogFile.Writeline("Username and Fullname are mandatory, the other elements can be null (ie. ,,), but the correct number of commas must be present.")
 End If
Loop

CSVFile.Close
LogFile.Close
Result = "Done!"&Chr(13)&X&" lines of CSV file processed - "&UsersCreated&" Users Created!"&Chr(13)&"See the log file in C:\usersresults.TXT for details!"
wsh.echo Result


Here is what the users.csv file would look like:

utcu0,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu1,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu2,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu3,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu4,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu5,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu6,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu7,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu8,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu9,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu10,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu11,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu12,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu13,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu14,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu15,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu16,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu17,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu18,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu19,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu20,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu21,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu22,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu23,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu24,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu25,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu26,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu27,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu28,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu29,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu30,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu31,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu32,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu33,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu34,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu35,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu36,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu37,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu38,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu39,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu40,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu41,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu42,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu43,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu44,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu45,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu46,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu47,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu48,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu49,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu50,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu51,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu52,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu53,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu54,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu55,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu56,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu57,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu58,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu59,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu60,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu61,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu62,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu63,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu64,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu65,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu66,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu67,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu68,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu69,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu70,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu71,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu72,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu73,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu74,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu75,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu76,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu77,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu78,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu79,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu80,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu81,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu82,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu83,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu84,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu85,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu86,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu87,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu88,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu89,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu90,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu91,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu92,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu93,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu94,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu95,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu96,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu97,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu98,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu99,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu100,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu101,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu102,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu103,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu104,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu105,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu106,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu107,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu108,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu109,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu110,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu111,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu112,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu113,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu114,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu115,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu116,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu117,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu118,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu119,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu120,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu121,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu122,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu123,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu124,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu125,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu126,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu127,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu128,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu129,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu130,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu131,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu132,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu133,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu134,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu135,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu136,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu137,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu138,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu139,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu140,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu141,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu142,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu143,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu144,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu145,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu146,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu147,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu148,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu149,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu150,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu151,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu152,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu153,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu154,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu155,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu156,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu157,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu158,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu159,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu160,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu161,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu162,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu163,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu164,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu165,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu166,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu167,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu168,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu169,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu170,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu171,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu172,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu173,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu174,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu175,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu176,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu177,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu178,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu179,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu180,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu181,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu182,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu183,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu184,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu185,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu186,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu187,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu188,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu189,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu190,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu191,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu192,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu193,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu194,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu195,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu196,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu197,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu198,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu199,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu200,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu201,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu202,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu203,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu204,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu205,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu206,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu207,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu208,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu209,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu210,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu211,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu212,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu213,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu214,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu215,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu216,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu217,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu218,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu219,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu220,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu221,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu222,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu223,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu224,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu225,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu226,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu227,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu228,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu229,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu230,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu231,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu232,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu233,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu234,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu235,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu236,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu237,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu238,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu239,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu240,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu241,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu242,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu243,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu244,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu245,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu246,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu247,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu248,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False
utcu249,CAM User,Sunray123,CAM Test Account,False


Pulling it all together
So now we can have our CAM Script launch a RPD or ICA connection to a Windows Terminal Server providing a unique username and common password.   The next step is to have you automated windows scripts start up for each user.  You can decide which method is the best for you, but the easiest is to just put it in the Startup program group.

A few caveats:

• If using Citrix, you must pass the password using the -clearpassword argument.
• Ensure that Always Prompt for Password is NOT set for each protocol under the Logon Settings Tab using the Terminal Services Configuration Connections Snapin
• To have the tests continually run, set your CAM application to critical and have your automated windows script performs a logoff at the end of the routine, the Sun Ray will cycle and start process again.

To Be Continued...

The post-PC era was supposed to be filled with internet appliances.  Need to read email, surf the web and find a recipe or get the latest headlines/stock quotes?  That role was to be filled by the appliance.  While thin clients and appliances have found success in the enterprise and education space, the same cannot be said for the consumer space.  In fact it's a horror story.

Consumer Internet appliances never panned out, and millions were lost on desktop models alone.  3Com's Audrey, Netpliance I-Opener, and the Earthlink MailStation are all examples of appliance failure.  Gateway got out while the getting out was good, even though I'm sure they lost millions as well on their Web Tablet.  WebTV probably would have folded years ago if it wasn't for the deep pockets of Microsoft.

So where is/was the problem.  Is it with the device?  Is it with the service?  Perhaps a lack of vision on where the internet was heading? 

I doubt when VC money was being gathered for something like the MailStation, the business team ever forsaw the millions of pictures, links to digital video, 10 MB PowerPoint Show attachements that appear in the average users email inbox on a daily basis.  Same can be said for pretty much any other appliance, especially the web surfing variety.  It's nearly impossible to visit a major website that doesn't have some sort of rich content on it's home page.  The developement costs and efforts to keep these special versions of a browser up to date to run this content is at very best an uphill struggle.

Likewise regarding service, I doubt AOL ever envisioned that out of their top 10 support calls, not one would be related to their AOL software or service (hint:  They are about problems with the OS their software runs on).  Support lines are not cheap.  You try to automate what you can, but let's face facts.  The target market for most internet appliances is the non-technical type and they are going to need more hand holding and that costs dollars (even when offshored).

Some appliances are doing well, but they have a special sauce.  Consider if RIM's BlackBerry was a stationary/desktop device, it would have never sold.  It's special sauce is that it's mobile.  There are very few appliances that have special sauce.  DVR's (i.e. TiVo) would probably make my list of the next most successful appliance to date.

As broadband becomes a commodity, ISP's are looking to increase their revenue stream.  They want to follow the cell phone model which is to subsidize the end device and load them up with services.  It's not that this model wasn't tried before as the Netpliance and others were heavily subsidized and users were locked into a two year dialup service @ $21.95.  However they still lost money and eventually folded.  Now one can argue that dialup service prohibited the the type of rich content that would help sell appliances, and they'd probably be right.  But I'd argue right back that the limited feature set that makes an appliance attractive to support would also be it's downfall in the consumer space.  I personally don't think the cell phone model will fly.

I've met with pretty much every major ISP in the US, all of which have expressed interest in having Sun Rays deployed in their customers homes.   At first glance, it's a very attractive proposition.  A totally stateless device that cannot be infected, does not have to be managed,  consumes almost zero power.  Perfect.  Back up the trucks and load 'em up.  One ISP exec was so spun up after seeing Sun Rays, he wanted to combine them with something like NetFlix to create a video on demand to any room in the house.  Hot desk your favorite movie!  Stop laughing, it's a true story.

There's one big problem with these eager beaver ISPs.  They want to sell the pipe, the device, perhaps support.  They don't want to sell or manage the special sauce which is the server and the authentication and disk space, and the (you get the point).  It's the age old problem of server based computing, while you can manage thousands of desktops from a few servers, you still have to manage the servers.  The self healing, self managing, unbreakable OS is still the stuff of SciFi movies unfortunately .

Today we throw around the term "PC Companion" when we talk about Thin Clients/appliances in the consumer space.  We assume that there will be at least one fat PC, typically running some variant of Microsoft Windows in the home to do the heavy lifting when it comes to rich content.  The appliance is for the kids/the wife/the mother in law just to check email/chat.  OK, that's fine.  You will still have the problems I noted above.  Even if it's just an email station, someone will attach or point to a quicktime or MS video format that the user can't play.  Or perhaps worse, they'll provide them with some content that they can play and it will suck up not only bandwidth, it will also take it's toll on the server, a shared server that is.

A couple of other issues come to mind.  Perhipheral support is troublesome.  Some companies are tackling this head on by only supporting one or two printers, a memory stick or two and that's about it.  Smart ones also happen to sell these devices all branded up with their logos to increase revenue potential.  So limiting what you support and actually providing those devices that can take care of most peripheral issues faced in the consumer market.  You'll still have those consumers who will see a printer/web camera/Tax software for sale at Costco and try to install it.  At least your support people can point to some form of document that clearly shows they were not supposed to do that, but you will still have an angry customer.

In the world of server based computing, the biggest issues involve multimedia performance and printing.  Printing is a problem since you basically have to maintain print queues on the server.  Maintaining print queues on the server requires administrators.  Administrators cost $$$.  You can't just go through a scripted routine of unplugging the printer, reboot your PC, etc. 

Now let's look at multimedia, specifically digital video.  Since everything is rendered server side, this takes a lot of CPU cycles and network bandwidth.  Bandwidth alone to deliver 1280x1024 digital video @ 30 FPS would require gigabit to the desktop, let's not even discuss the CPU power to render and push those bits down the pipe.  Let's just say it's not really feasible today.  We are getting better at tradtional web content and will continue to work on this, but nothing in the Server Based Computing market was intended to replace your television set.

One company that is taking a stab at appliances is AMD.  They have an initative called 50x15 where they want to have 50 percent of the world on the internet by 2015.  AMD and Samsung created the PIC (Personal Internet Communicator) to meet this need.  Cable and Wireless has started rolling these out about a year or so ago in the Carribean as part of a service called MaX.  If you have a DSL account with C&W MaX costs $300 or $25 a month for 1 year (excluding DSL costs).  They only support a few peripherals, which is good because the PIC is Windows CE based, it's a serious pain to update.  Now that's about the price range of a vanilla cheap PC, and a bit cheaper than a low end Dell or E-Machine.  But the functionality is much different.  You can't get new software for it (paid for or otherwise), you can't game on it (not real gaming like Quake, Doom, etc), if you need a new version of IE/Macromedia Flash/Acrobat/name your plugin, you are out of luck.  Radio Shack signed up to sell the PIC in the US, but it doesn't seem like that is going anywhere with US Consumers.  Although they finally have it up on their website and the customer reviews of the unit on the Shack's website seems to say that they've found 6 people in their target market. 

The PIC arguably does a better job at multimedia than something like a Sun Ray and doesn't require a server backend to make it work.  These are two key requirements of a consumer device, but by no means is it all of them.  Perhaps it is enough, especially if it truly is a companion to a full blown PC.

Which leads me to wonder in this day and age of decent $400 USD PC's, is there even a need for consumer level internet appliance of some sort?  Sure management, viruses, identity theft are all real concerns that a cheap PC doesn't solve.  But at the end of the day it's someone elses problem (i.e. the owner of the cheap PC). 

I'd love to say that there is a consumer market today for Sun Rays, but I just don't see it.  Not today anyhow.  Do you?

The Sun Ray Connector for Windows Beta 2 is available today!
Check it out.

As mentioned in my last post, one region in particular boasts two excellent desktop partners with some interesting addon software to make deploying, integrating and managing Sun Rays as easy as possible.

RayMote, from Slovakia based Sun partner Tempest (whipping up a storm, Tempest, gettit?) is a long standing solution used by several customers across Europe. The RayMote guys are happy to work with Sun and other Sun partners anywhere and have been involved in a number of international projects.

I've seen the solution demo'd and have a VMWare image at home that's screaming at me to get it installed and write a brief review. For now have a look at their website info and try out the online demo.

Their lead developer and all round Sun Ray guru is Daniel Vanco, who's active on the sunray-users alias.

There's something in the water in the Czech and Slovak Republics that seems to encourage innovative Sun Desktop partners to create cool stuff...

First off I'd like to mention Stickfish, whose team leader I met in person for the first time recently.

Stickfish do a number of different things, but one of their solutions is the SF Kiosk. SF Kiosk aims to make it easier to deploy and manage applications and users' desktops in a Sun Ray environment.

Info in English is here. Have a look at the datasheets to find out more. They guys speak excellent English, so feel free to get in touch directly - they're happy to work anywhere.

They already have a number of local customers. I'm looking forward to getting access to a demo copy to try out.

This is as good a place as any to post this, as I know that various educational Sun Ray proofs of concepts are currently running.

A K12 customer in Cyprus has been looking in detail at Sun Rays with Linux and Solaris x86 and found that he was missing TuxMath compiled for Solaris.

A colleague of mine, Mitch DSousa, compiled it for him. It hasn't been extensively tested, but appears to work fine. Use at your own risk, etc.

You must have the Companion CD installed on the server (/usr/sfw and /opt/sfw stuff must exist) for this to work correctly.

Do the following as root

cd /

/usr/sfw/bin/gtar xfz /some/path/where/you/saved/tuxmath.tar.gz

The binary is installed as /usr/bin/tuxmath

If anyone tries it out, let me know!

The post on Follow Me printing here is great for automatically changing the print queue when hot desking. This set up was based upon changing the _default entry in the ~/.printers file of the current user. Very effective.

But what if you want the same reaction when running Full Screen windows on the Sun Ray devices in CAM mode?

In order to achieve this, we will use the client side printer forwarding features of the Interop clients (ICA Client, Sun Ray Windows Connector, RDesktop) to facilitate Hot Desk printing.

1. Create Print queues

Print queues for all printers should be created on all members of the FOG. Make sure that you use identical names on all FOG servers. These can be network attached, direct attached, or DTU attached printers. It's a good idea to use a queue name which relates to the printer's location.

2. Implement .printers remapping script & associate printers to DTUs

Add the follow me script and the utaction command to your CAM script as outlined here

3. Configure Interop client to forward printer

ICA Client - The Citrix ICA client by default auto-creates the first printer listed after the _default= in the ~/.printers file. This works great but won't facilitate hot desk printer changes as it forwards the queue name directly, not the desired sudo name "_default".

If you are using CAM ICA, you are likely using a Protptypes directory to contain your ~/.ICAClient settings. You will need to edit your Prototpyes .ICAClient/wfclient.ini file to configure the fowarding of the _default printer. Add the following two lines to the WFClient section:

[WFClient]
DefaultPrinter=_default
DefaultPrinterDriver="Generic PostScript Printer"
    

Sun Ray Windows Connector - The SRWC has command line options for forwarding print queues. Edit your CAM script to change the uttsc command to add the -r option. Please see the following example.

/opt/SUNWuttsc/bin/uttsc -m -r printer:_default -A 24 -D fullwindowdrag -D wallpaper servername

RDesktop - RDesktop is very similar to the SRWC in the method used to forward client printers. In the following example below, I have also added the option of setting the client hostname to be the MAC address of the Sun Ray

SUNRAY=`/opt/SUNWut/sbin/utdesktop -Lc | \
    /usr/bin/grep ${SUN_SUNRAY_TOKEN} | /usr/bin/cut -f 1 -d " "`
/opt/rdesktop/rdesktop -f -r printer:_default -r sound:local -n $SUNRAY -a 24 servername
    

That's it! Now you'll have Follow Me printing when using Windows displayed on a Sun Ray without adding/changing/or otherwise disrupting the Windows back end.

Happy Hot Desking...

Don't install the Hotfix for KB 912945.  It's an optional update that will cause headaches for your Windows users (whether Terminal Server or VM's).

Users will be required to click a dialog box every time they want to run an ActiveX control, even signed ones. Dialog reads "Click to run an Activex control on this web page".  Must click multiple times for pages with multiple ActiveX controls.  It gets real fun viewing any quicktime movie trailers.

Web pages with the following acitve content will cause this behavior:

• Adobe Reader
• Apple QuickTime Player
• Macromedia Flash
• Microsoft Windows Media Player
• Real Networks RealPlayer
• Sun Java Virtual Machine

I was at a Sun partner today who also resell products from another thin client vendor. I picked up a brochure they had on their current range.

I have nothing against this vendor in particular and am quite happy to agree that on occasion they might have the better tool for the job than Sun do. That said, I was amazed to count no less than 15 different thin clients in their product range. That strikes me as being overly complex.

In a shameless plug, I remembered a blog post I wrote last year on the subject of how managing Windows or Linux based terminals can be as complex as having a PC network.

For some reason, the hardest thing to get across is the issue of 'having' to manage a server as part of a Sun Ray set up. I don't see why this is an issue. What would you rather look after? -

* 100 thin clients, each with an individual OS and applications, plus a management server to provide and provision updates and so on.

* 100 Sun Rays which require no maintenance at all and a server controlling them?

If I'm missing something obvious, please pitch in with your comments, but it strikes me that if you're looking at thin clients to solve manageability and other cost issues, keeping complexity on the desktop itself isn't always the best way forward.

I've created a handy easy to follow how to guide to accompany my Sun Ray as a Digital Audio Player post.  Have a look, I think you'll find it is pretty cool. 

Keep in mind that you don't have to use this in CAM mode.  Why not give your users head phones and access to digital media served up via the open source slim server. 

The SoftSqueeze actually has a "remote control" feature that allows users to search through all the digital audio served up from the SlimServer. 



Also keep in mind that this doesn't have to be music.

Think podcasts, lectures, etc.  One of nicest things about this is that SlimServer can serve up many other formats other than MP3.  Your users can listen to content in the following formats: MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WAV and more.

I've updated the Windows Lock Screen routine to support Windows 2000 and also to support using the SGD Native Client. 

Windows 2000 and the SGD Native Client do not support the Meta+L keystroke.  The SGD Client doesn't support CTRL+ALT+DEL so it requires a different keystroke combination to be sent (CTRL+ALT+END) when connecting to either Windows 2000/2003/XP.

        
Find a few used Sun Ray 1's off eBay
Find some good cheap speakers
Download the free SlimServer (Runs on Solaris, Linux, etc)
Configure Sun Ray Server in CAM mode, have it run the Softsqueeze Player (extract to /opt/SoftSqueeze to follow how to guide)
Add your MP3 collection

Shake gently...and voilà you have instant digital audio player in every room in your house.

Follow this easy how to guide.

Not wired?  Just add WiFi Ethernet Bridge (11b is fine) or use an electrical outlet solution.

No need for Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor on each Sun Ray as you can control the music selection for each Sun Ray via the SlimServer web page. 

Want to take your music with you from room to room?  Just run this with smart cards and as you hot desk, your music will follow.

Note while this example is for CAM, it could easily be done for normal Sun Ray deployments as an application for users to run.  Imagine that instead of music, your SlimServer served up Podcasts or other digital audio formats.