Guacamole 0.8.3

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Quickstart

This will show you

• how to install guacamole 0.8.3 on Ubuntu (tested with 10.04 and 12.04)
• how to make this configuration survive a reboot
• how to secure transmission with SSL
• how to make the website accessible from behind a firewall (port 80 or 443)

Here's what you do as root user:

• install software that we will need later:

apt-get update
apt-get install tomcat6 tightvncserver make xterm

configure VNC server

Guacamole does the communication between a VNC server and the web browser. So whatever you see in VNC will be in the browser. Let's use gnome as desktop environment:

• install gnome:

apt-get install gnome-session

• activate gnome for your VNC:

cd
mkdir .vnc
cat >> .vnc/xstartup <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
gnome-session || xterm
EOF
chmod 777 .vnc/xstartup

deploy guacamole client

• download the guacamole webapp from http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/binary/
• deploy it

# mv guacamole-0.8.3.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/

• surf to http://localhost:8080/guacamole-0.8.3. A folder /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/guacamole-0.8.3 will be created with some content. We will need that later.
• although login is not yet possible your browser will show a login screen like that:

install guacamole server

• install some dependencies that the server will need to build with vnc support:

apt-get install libvncserver-dev libpng-dev libcairo-dev

• download guacamole-server from http://sourceforge.net/projects/guacamole/files/current/source/
• unpack it

tar xvzf guacamole-server-0.8.3.tar.gz

• build the server:

cd guacamole-server-0.8.3
./configure && make -j8 && make install

• the following step is ugly; installation and binary do not completely fit so we must do that:

ln -s /usr/local/lib/libguac.so* /lib
ln -s /usr/local/lib/libguac-client-vnc.so* /lib/

• now we start the guacamole daemon

# guacd 
guacd[11581]: INFO:  Guacamole proxy daemon (guacd) version 0.8.3
guacd[11581]: INFO:  Successfully bound socket to host ::1, port 4822
guacd[11581]: INFO:  Exiting and passing control to PID 11582

configure guacamole

• create a folder for guacamole's configuration:

mkdir /etc/guacamole

• create a file /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties with the content

# Hostname and port of guacamole proxy
guacd-hostname: localhost
guacd-port:     4822

# Location to read extra .jar's from
lib-directory:  /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/guacamole-0.8.3/WEB-INF/classes

# Authentication provider class
auth-provider: net.sourceforge.guacamole.net.basic.BasicFileAuthenticationProvider

# Properties used by BasicFileAuthenticationProvider
basic-user-mapping: /etc/guacamole/user-mapping.xml

• create a file /etc/guacamole/user-mapping.xml with the content

<user-mapping>
   <authorize username="user" password="password">
      <protocol>vnc</protocol>
         <param name="hostname">localhost</param>
         <param name="port">5901</param>
         <param name="password">password</param>
    </authorize>
</user-mapping>

configure tomcat

• find out your tomcat's user directory:

# cat /etc/passwd|grep tomcat
tomcat6:x:113:116::/usr/share/tomcat6:/bin/false

in this case it is /usr/share/tomcat6

• create a folder .guacamole in your tomcat's user directory:

mkdir /usr/share/tomcat6/.guacamole

• link guacamole.properties into your tomcat's user directories' guacamole folder

ln -s /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties /usr/share/tomcat6/.guacamole

finishing

• start a vnc server, as password set password (the vnc password given in user-mappings.xml)

vncserver

• restart your tomcat server

/etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

• point your browser to http://localhost:8080/guacamole-0.8.3
• log in as user, password password (the user given in user-mappings.xml)
• you should see a screen like this:

• next steps: SSL
• next steps: proxypass

Persist it

Add the following lines to /etc/crontab:

@reboot root /usr/local/sbin/guacd &
@reboot root USER=root /usr/bin/vncserver

TroubleShooting

invalid login

• now the problem is that tomcat does not know where to find the Authentication class:

/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/guacamole/WEB-INF/classes/net/sourceforge/guacamole/net/basic/BasicFileAuthenticationProvider.class

is not in /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties

• so add it
• cat /etc/passwd gives me a line

tomcat6:x:113:116::/usr/share/tomcat6:/bin/false

ll /usr/share/tomcat6/.guacamole/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 26 07:58 ./
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Nov 26 07:57 ../
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   35 Nov 26 07:58 guacamole.properties -> /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties

• works now. So the thing is:
  • take care that it is called guacamole and not guacamole-0.8.3 (sure?)
  • make sure the classpath in /etc/guacamole/guacamole.properties is correct, e.g.

# Location to read extra .jar's from
lib-directory:  /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/guacamole/WEB-INF/classes

Server error

• now I got a server error so I straced guacd:

strace -p 15332

and saw

[pid 20344] open("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libguac-client-vnc.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

so the problem is that libguac-client-vnc.so is missing.

• downloaded java version 1.7.45 and compiled guacamole-client using mvn. But there was no *.so* file in it
• so installed libvncserver-dev and rebuild and reinstalled guacamole-server
• and there it is, libguac-client-vnc.so
• now the error message changed from "server error" to "unauthorized"

See also

• connect to a Linux computer
• guacamole 0.8 on SUSE
• guacamole 0.3.0 on Ubuntu 10.04
• guacamole on Debian 6
• guacamole on Ubuntu 11.10 32bit
• cool things
• schedule tAsks
• http://guac-dev.org/Debian%20Install%20Instructions
• ulteo
• http://www.filegott.se/prd/index.php/how-tos/19-how-to-setup-guacamole-in-linux-ubuntu
• http://guac-dev.org/doc/gug/installing-guacamole.html#idp99200