Quirks

This page contains some quirks that you may encounter while setting up the platform and how to work around them.

Note

Any changes done to the LTSP images will require you to rebuild the image. This can be done by running the following commands:

sudo ltsp image <image_name>

Disable Auto suspend

By default in gnome the client image is set to suspend after 5 minutes of inactivity depending on the client distro defaults. This can be troublesome since it usually results in a frozen system and no way for user to restart it. To disable this system wide, you'll have to edit the following files /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-power

# Specify the dconf path
[org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/power]

# Enable screen dimming
idle-dim=false

# Set brightness after dimming
idle-brightness=30

/etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-screensaver

# Specify the dconf path
[org/gnome/desktop/session]

# Number of seconds of inactivity before the screen goes blank
# Set to 0 seconds if you want to deactivate the screensaver.
idle-delay=uint32 0

# Specify the dconf path
[org/gnome/desktop/screensaver]

# Number of seconds after the screen is blank before locking the screen
lock-delay=uint32 0

Kali Linux does not authenticate LDAP users

You may encounter an issue where Kali Linux clients are unable to authenticate LDAP users even after configuring LDAP on Kali VM in virtualbox. This is due to the fact that in Kali, the nslcd.service not enabled by default. To fix this, you'll have to manually enable the service after installing LDAP packages. Run the following command:

sudo systemctl enable --now nslcd.service

Since all users exists on the LDAP server, GDM will not show the list of users on the login screen and the user should click on the "Not listed?" button to enter the username manually. This can be annoying for users who are not aware of this. To disable user list and show username prompt on login, you'll have to edit /etc/gdm3/greeter.dconf-defaults to uncomment the disable-user-list=true line.

Using local disk instead of LTSP image

If you want to use a local disk instead of the VMs booting off of the LTSP server, you can do by attaching a disk of required size into every VM and changing the boot order. Doing this manually is time consuming, so you may use the following commands to automate the process:

Attaching disks

for i in {1..10}; do qm set $i --scsi1 <storage_name>:<disk_size>; done
# To attach a disk of size 32GB from a ZFS pool called Tank to VMs 1 to 10 as scsi1, use the following command:
# for i in {1..10}; do qm set $i --scsi1 Tank:32; done

Mounting ISOs

for i in {1..10}; do qm set $i --ide0 <iso_path>; done
# To mount an ISO located at /zfsimages/templates/iso/ubuntu.iso to VMs 1 to 10 as ide0, use the following command:
# for i in {1..10}; do qm set $i --ide0 /zfsimages/templates/iso/ubuntu.iso; done

Setting boot order

You need to change the boot order of the VM to boot off of the ISO if you are planning to install an OS on it. By default, all the VMs will boot off of the LTSP server.

for i in {1..10}; do qm set $i --boot 'order=scsi0;ide0'; done
# To set the boot order to scsi0 and ide0 for VMs 1 to 10, use the following command:
# for i in {1..10}; do qm set $i --boot 'order=scsi0;ide0'; done