Bug 84523 - Feature Request: Support For Multi-User Server
Summary: Feature Request: Support For Multi-User Server
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Impress Remote
Classification: Unclassified
Component: General (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-09-30 17:26 UTC by Dave Richards
Modified: 2020-08-07 09:14 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Dave Richards 2014-09-30 17:26:02 UTC
The Impress remote is a wonderful idea and we'd like to deploy it, but it cannot work on a multi-user server.  The remote is connecting to a TCP port which only works when you have one user.  If multiple instances and users are running on the same computer, this design will not work.

This request is for a design change that works with single and multiple users that might all connect to Impress running on the same IP address.  I'm assuming the remote would have to log into the user account in some way (ssh?) and pass commands in that manner.

It's certainly understood this is a significant change, but right now larger organizations won't be able to use the remote with it's many users.
Comment 1 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2014-10-26 21:21:20 UTC
(In reply to Dave Richards from comment #0)
> The Impress remote is a wonderful idea and we'd like to deploy it, but it
> cannot work on a multi-user server.  The remote is connecting to a TCP port
> which only works when you have one user.  If multiple instances and users
> are running on the same computer, this design will not work.
> 
> This request is for a design change that works with single and multiple
> users that might all connect to Impress running on the same IP address.  I'm
> assuming the remote would have to log into the user account in some way
> (ssh?) and pass commands in that manner.
> 
> It's certainly understood this is a significant change, but right now larger
> organizations won't be able to use the remote with it's many users.

Hiya,

I'm a bit confused about your use case here. Are you suggesting that the Impress remote can handle a many-to-many environment (many users, each with his own copy of Impress running), or a many-to-one environment, (many users, each connecting to one copy of Impress) ?

In what kind of environment would you need to run multiple copies of Impress in presentation mode on a machine sharing a single IP?  Would you split up the display in some fashion?

(Please change status back to UNCONFIRMED after commenting)

Thanks,
--R
Comment 2 Dave Richards 2014-10-27 15:28:40 UTC
@Robinson;

A few responses.  

- In general even a one-to-one connection between tablet and Impress should be secure and require authentication.  Otherwise, you might have people sniffing around looking for Impress sessions and being able to connect.

- To more specifically answer your question, we have a many-to-many requirement.  We have 800 users using LO, many of whom are concurrently building presentations and giving presentations around the City -- all from a big server running LibreOffice in multi-user mode.   With the current design of the remote, this would never work.  

The remote app should ask for the IP of the machine running LO and then ask for ssh account and password login and work in that manner.

Going into the future, as LO is run more and more from a cloud server, this design probably will become more common place.  It's very easy to get hundreds of concurrent LO sessions running from the same server.
Comment 3 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2014-11-07 10:56:31 UTC
Hiya,
Please don't confirm your own bug reports.

Status -> UNCONFIRMED

(In reply to Dave Richards from comment #2)
> - In general even a one-to-one connection between tablet and Impress should
> be secure and require authentication.  Otherwise, you might have people
> sniffing around looking for Impress sessions and being able to connect.

Sure, that sounds like a reasonable enhancement request. (Please file a separate bug for that one :-)

> - To more specifically answer your question, we have a many-to-many
> requirement.  We have 800 users using LO, many of whom are concurrently
> building presentations and giving presentations around the City -- all from
> a big server running LibreOffice in multi-user mode.   With the current
> design of the remote, this would never work.  

Ah, okay, so each person has his own copy of LibreOffice running. Things are a lot more clear now :-)

> The remote app should ask for the IP of the machine running LO and then ask
> for ssh account and password login and work in that manner.

Hmm, I thought that the Impress Remote had a screen where one could specific the IP address manually, but I don't see that right now.

Providing ssh login and password details sounds a little complicated to me, and might leak remote access to a machine more than most corporate setups would like. I think there might be some better ways to handle this on a multi-user machine, perhaps with some kind of challenge-response mechanism using shared secrets.

> Going into the future, as LO is run more and more from a cloud server, this
> design probably will become more common place.  It's very easy to get
> hundreds of concurrent LO sessions running from the same server.

Yeah, I can imagine that this could be a growing topic. I haven't seen anyone trying to use LibreOffice w/the Impress Remote on a multi-user machine like this previously, but it's definitely an interesting use-case.

I'll point the Impress Remote devs at this bug report.
Comment 4 Robinson Tryon (qubit) 2015-01-07 02:23:08 UTC
The Impress Remote devs can prioritize/comment further.

Status -> NEW