Install for Ubuntu or Fedora + LTSP 4.2

Ubuntu users should create a symlink sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/arp /sbin/arp

The Instructions below have Fedora specific package management commands. Please use the appropriate equivalent Debian package management commands

If you want to install fl_teachertool from my source tarball then follow the steps below:

You need to install FLTK 1.1.6 or 1.1.7 to be able to compile Fl_TeacherTool and run Fl_TeacherTool. First check if you already have fltk installed as a package
$rpm -q fltk
$rpm -q fltk-devel

You need both fltk and fltk-devel packages. Make sure you have at least version 1.1.6. If you have a previous version try installing them again as described below.

If you don't have the fltk packages (or have an older version) then type
#yum install fltk
#yum install fltk-devel
This should install both current fltk packages.

If you already have Fl_TeacherTool installed using yum. It should exist in /usr/sbin

To check type#
rpm -ql fl_teachertool

The source tarball makefile installs Fl_TeacherTool to /usr/local/sbin So you can have both versions if you choose. If you wish to remove the old version installed by yum, simply type
#rpm -e fl_teachertool

Next download Fl_TeacherTool-0.34-src.tar.gz then type the following in a shell console
$tar -xvzf Fl_TeacherTool-0.33-src.tar.gz
$cd Fl_TeacherTool-0.33
$make
$su
#make install
Note: In order to run make you will need to ensure you have development libraries installed. Run system-config-packages and under heading Development install "Development Tools" and "X Software Development"

You will also need VNCReflector and teachertool-tightvnc.
Check to see if you already have them
$rpm -q vncreflector
$rpm -q teachertool-tightvnc

If you do not then get them from the URL's below Download VNCReflector from here
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/vncreflector/

or here for the source tarball
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vnc-reflector/

and teachertool-tightvnc from here
ftp://k12linux.mesd.k12.or.us/pub/K12LTSP/testing/teachertool-vnc/

This is simply the tight vncviewer binary renamed to teachertool-vncviewer
You can get the source from here
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14067&package_id=28492

Some advice for Ubuntu users. To compile vncreflector you need zlib development library
(for Ubuntu 6.10 it's zlib1g-dev)and
libjpeg (ubuntu 6.10 it's libjpeg62-dev)
then just copy the vncreflector binary to /usr/bin
To build tight vncviewer grab the source tarball from sourceforge and the Readme says to compile it with
xmkmf
make World
but you need to have
xorg-dev
package to make it. You only need the vncviewer binary in the vncviewer dir. Rename it to teachertool-vncviewer and copy it to /usr/bin

Now in a shell console type
$su
#rpm -ivh vncreflector...rpm
#rpm -ivh teachertool-tightvnc...rpm

Note: Fl_TeacherTool must be run with root priviliges to be fully functional unless you follow the sudo instructions below. So on the SERVER you can type
$su
#/usr/local/sbin/Fl_TeacherTool
Note: If you installed using yum, Fl_TeacherTool will be located in /usr/sbin/fl_teachertool

Enable Monitor/Control

  1. Edit the file /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf and uncomment (i.e. remove the "#"): X4_MODULE_02 = vnc
  2. Become root: su -
  3. Make a password for the vnc-session: /usr/bin/vncpasswd
  4. Copy the password file into the ltsp-tree: cp -a /root/.vnc /opt/ltsp/i386/root/
  5. Log out of root session: exit
  6. Reboot your clients!
****Security Notice as of Oct 27, 2008:
Enabling Monitor/Control is no longer recommended.

A security vulnerability exists if you enabled Monitor/Control 
by following the instructions above:

Please be aware that anyone with some Linux knowledge could
potentially take control of, or monitor, a client computer.

If you do not feel comfortable with this situation, 
especially if the teacher workstation is a client machine,
then follow the simple work around patch below.

******Work Around / Patch:******
Notice: this will disable monitor/control and snapshots in
Fl_Teachertool.

Edit the file /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf and *COMMENT* 
the vnc module line 
(i.e. INSERT a "#" at the beginning of the line): 

# X4_MODULE_02 = vnc

OR (depending how you enabled the vnc server on the client)
Delete the x11vnc line in  /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/rc.local

reboot the client machines.

For good measure, delete your old vnc password files:
rm  /opt/ltsp/i386/root/.vnc/passwd
rm  /root/.vnc/passwd

Allow Non-Root Users to Run Fl_TeacherTool

This enables teachers who do not have root password to run fl_teachertool.

  1. Create a new group called "teachers" using system-config-users
    You can run this from GNOME using System, Administration, Users and Groups.
  2. Add the "teachers" group to each user who needs to run fl_teachertool.
  3. Become root with $su -
  4. Run: visudo This is a special editor for the sudoers file.
  5. Add the following line to the end of the file using vi editing techniques: %teachers ALL=NOPASSWD:/usr/sbin/fl_teachertool
    Enter at least one blank line at the end of the file. If you don't know vi then just goto the last line and hit the letter "i" for (insert) then type the above line, hit enter, then hit the escape key. Now type
    :wq and hit <enter>. This saves and exits. Alternatively, you can set the EDITOR environment variable to a different text editor. nano is a friendly editor:
    export EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano; visudo
  6. If your fellow teachers are not comfortable typing "sudo /usr/sbin/fl_teachertool" then add an alias in file .bashrc (notice it starts with a period) in the home directory of the people who will run the program.
    # User specific aliases and functions
    alias teach='sudo /usr/sbin/fl_teachertool'
    Then they only have to type teach or alternatively put a launcher icon with the command sudo /usr/sbin/fl_teachertool on their desktop.