I am trying to to run multiple Remote Desktop connection instances with Amazon's AWS EC2 and keep a macro file running on each instance via Macro Express (installed separately on each node), but each time I minimize an instance, the the mouse movement of that macro freezes and the process is suspended. Since these macros that I am running rely on specific mouse positioning/movement, is there any way of keeping them running on each instance after I minimize?
Thanks a bunch,
Jake
If you change screen with keyboard than mouse position on previous server will not change.
Not quite what you asked for, but might be helpful enough:
CTRL+ ALT+ ← - switches you to the host computer
CTRL+ ALT+ → - switches you back to the remote computer
Also can help:
Keyboard Shortcuts in Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) for Navigation
Related
Im am using Autohotkey to rerun Pytest every ten minutes on a Virtual machine offered my Microsoft Azure.
My .ahk script is simple.
loop
{
Send !{F10}
Sleep, 600000
}
The script works perfectly while Im connected to the remote desktop. But if I exit the full screen or disconnect from it., it does not work. The Autohotkey keeps on running but for some reason just does not register Send !{F10}.It only starts registering it when I connect back on it. Please help.
Autohotkey not functioning properly on minimized virtual machines is an issue that's been around for a while, with
(regarding Virtual Machines):
RemoteAdmin server process launches a program on request of remote
user (you). So R.A. is a parent process for AHK. Once you minimize
your RA session client it signals the RA-server that. RA-server thinks
now that since the client is minimized it does not need anything and
to consume CPU power it halts any activity of itself and its child
processes.
-wOxxOm
And in the documentation of other AHK functions, such as WinActivate
Known issue: If the script is running on a computer or server being
accessed via remote desktop, WinActivate may hang if the remote
desktop client is minimized. One workaround is to use commands which
don't require window activation, such as ControlSend and ControlClick.
Another possible workaround is to apply the following registry setting
on the local/client computer:
; Change HKCU to HKLM to affect all users on this system.
RegWrite REG_DWORD, HKCU, Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client
, RemoteDesktop_SuppressWhenMinimized, 2
^^The above registry change may potentially solve your issue as well^^
The forum thread provides a couple of different workarounds for this issue, but if you are just trying to put the VM out of the way while you do other stuff on your computer, the least gimmicky solution that I can think of would be to move the Virtual Machine window on the host computer to a Virtual Desktop by either using the Win+Tab shortcut or by using this guide. By moving the window to a virtual desktop, the Virtual Machine will moved out of the way in a manner where it would not be minimized, allowing it to continue running the AHK script. Additionally, you can quickly navigate between Virtual Desktops with the Ctrl+Win+← and Ctrl+Win+→ shortcuts.
I have the following scenario:
I set up a Docker container with access to the X11 socket, essentially I did this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25334301
Then I installed Firefox within the container and started it using the "firefox" command in bash.
What I noticed: If Firefox was already running on my host machine when I started it in the container, it essentially "escaped" the container as it just opened a new window of the host instance of Firefox. It therefore had access to everything on the host machine and the container became useless.
This also works vice versa: If Firefox is not running on the host and I start an instance in the container, it is really running inside the container. If I then start Firefox on the host, the new instance is also running inside the container.
However, I couldn't reproduce this behavior with gvim instead of Firefox.
I am well aware of the security problems inherent with X11 socket sharing, but I cannot explain the scenario I described above. Why can a container start a "process"---or rather a window---outside of its restricted environment? And how is it even possible that my host system starts a process within a container only because the same program is already running inside a container?
(Please note that I didn't know how to call such a graphical instance of a program other than "process", although it's probably not a real process in this case...)
System: Ubuntu GNOME 14.10, Docker 1.5, ubuntu:latest Docker image.
UPDATE: This doesn't happen if I start Firefox using the -new-instance flag, so it seems to be more of a Firefox problem than a X11 socket problem.
UPDATE 2: Seems that this happens in other scenarios as well, for example using ssh with X-forwarding:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/104476/why-starting-firefox-from-command-line-in-vm-starts-the-firefox-in-the-host-ma
and
https://superuser.com/questions/462055/launching-firefox-on-remote-server-causes-local-firefox-to-open-the-page-instead
Now the question is, how the hell does Firefox do this? What kind of X11 sorcery do they use to find out if Firefox is already running?
Because you forward the x11 socket into the container, any graphical program, whether inside the container or outside the container, will be talking to the same Xorg server. This is the same as when using ssh with X-forwarding.
Now let's say that one firefox instance is already started and communicating with that xserver. If we are the second firefox process starting up, we might find that first process by navigating the window tree from the root. We might be able to identify a window belonging to firefox through some properties that it sets on it's windows. Once we found a window belonging to firefox, we might send a message to the process owning that window, asking it to add a new tab.
Perhaps if we find such a process and ask it to open a new tab, we just die off as our job is done.
Of course, we could always just look at the source and find out that indeed firefox does basically this. In particular they:
find an existing window
and then notify it
But they don't notify it with a client message. They do it by changing a window property. Presumably the process that creates the window also subscribes to property change notifications. In case you're curious the full path through the code is:
from parsing the command line, StartRemoteClient
which creats a client (note that they do this over d-bus/wayland also) and then calls SendCommandLine()
which is a virtual function, so find it's override XRemoteClient
and in there you see where it calls the previous two functions linked to FindBestWindow() and then DoSendCommandLine().
I have a large repository of C++ code on a remote cluster (linux OS). When I need to work on this code from my home computer (Ubuntu OS), I try to access these codes through emacs on X windows. However the X window connection is very slow making the editing a painful process. So I sometimes move files manually between my local drive and remote cluster to edit the files. My question is: is there a way to configure my local emacs, such that when I edit the file in my local space, it would automatically be backed up in the cluster where it can then be compiled?
UPDATE:1
I installed TRAMP and it works well for servers that can be connected directly. However I also have servers which can be connected only when I activate VPN. How to provide the VPN information to TRAMP to connect to this server?
The other question I had was how to stop the TRAMP when it waits for prompts from remote shell without having to kill the whole emacs buffer.
This is typically a use case where TRAMP would be useful.
Instead of connecting to the server using SSH and opening Emacs there with X forwarding, run Emacs on your box and open your files remotely using TRAMP. For example:
C-xC-f/ssh:user#host:/remote/path/to/the/fileRET
This way, your Emacs process runs locally, but all file operations (e.g. save, revert, ...) are forwarded to the server, and all shell commands issued from TRAMP buffers also run on the remote server (this includes M-x compile)
UPDATE:1
When TRAMP hangs waiting for a remote shell prompt (which tends to happen frequently for reasons which are still obscure to me), I usually kill the underlying ssh process (htop with tree-like view is a good tool to do this) . TRAMP notices this and automatically respawns the killed process to resume operations.
Wouldn't it be easier to run Emacs in a console on the remote server? All Emacs functions can be access via the keyboard and once you get used to the key combinations it usually works out faster.
That way you will be running faster than forwarding an X session - running in a console is what Emacs was designed for.
As an added bonus - if you get used to using Gnu screen - http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/ you can pick up your sessions exactly as they were if the connection drops. In fact with screen you can shutdown your laptop at the end of the day - login over SSH the next day and pick up all your 'screens' exactly as they were the day before. This will include any open editors, debug sessions etc.
Gnu screen is available as a package on Debian and probably most Linux distributions.
With TestComplete 8 we have a script that is scheduled to start 06:00 every morning by this line:
"C:\Program Files\Automated QA\TestComplete 8\Bin\TestComplete.exe" "C:\Attracs\TestComplete\Attracs\AttracsTEST\AttracsTESTProject.mds" /r /e /SilentMode
The problem is that this often fails. The log remark says:
An error occurred while calling the "Keys" method or property of the "TcxCustomInnerTextEdit" object.
The object or one of its parent objects does not exist.
If I connect to the computer with Remote Desktop and manually run the script it works fine.
There is no screensaver active and the power scheme is set to never sleep.
I have noticed that Testcomplete needs a handle to GUI (the screen is visible) or the script got this kind of errors. Could it be that when it starts it have no handle to the GUI components because they aren't visible ?
From the helps Running Tests via Remote desktop:
However, if you minimize the Remote Desktop window (the window that display the remote computer’s desktop), the operating system switches the remote session to the GUI-less mode and does not display windows and controls. As a result, TestComplete (or TestExecute) is unable to interact with the tested application’s GUI, as the GUI does not actually exist in this case and your automated GUI test fails.
To avoid this issue, you can keep the Remote Desktop window visible during the test run, but this may be inconvenient as it occupies some part or even your entire screen and leaves less space for you to run your local applications.
Any solution for this?
There is a way to enable the console connection in Windows to be active at all times, which allows TestComplete to work without actually connecting with RDP.
From: Running Tests in Minimized Remote Desktop Windows
Log in to the computer from which you
connect to remote computers.
Close all open Remote Desktop
sessions.
Launch the Registry editor
(Regedit.exe).
If you have a 32-bit operating system:
Locate the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal
Server Client\ Registry key if you
want to change the connection settings
for the current user only.
-- or --
Locate the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Terminal
Server Client\ Registry key if you
want to change the connection settings
for all the users.
Create a new DWORD value in this key
and name it
RemoteDesktop_SuppressWhenMinimized.
Specify 2 as the value data.
If you have a 64-bit operating system:
Locate the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Terminal
Server Client\ Registry key if you
want to change the connection settings
for the current user only.
-- or --
Locate the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Terminal
Server Client\ Registry key if you
want to change the connection settings
for all the users.
Add the
RemoteDesktop_SuppressWhenMinimized
value to the key.
I found this page
http://www.automatedqa.com/support/viewarticle/12567/viewarticle.aspx?aid=12567
It seems that a solution could be that running TestComplete in a Virtual machine.
/Roland
To run any UI test, the UI needs to be available. Hence, the machine should be unlocked so that TestComplete can perform user actions like mouse click, keys, etc to work.
However, if you have non UI test like running Web Services then it will work.
This page from the Emacs manual describes a function called make-frame-on-display that allows you to access a remote Emacs session. My interest in this function is to use it to share buffers for pair programming remotely with a colleague.
From the page:
It is even possible to use this feature to let two or more users type simultaneously on the two displays, within the same Emacs job. In practice, however, the different users can easily interfere with each others' edits if they are not careful.
How exactly do I set this up? What do I need? What does my partner need? The details are not stated, but I don't know enough about Emacs to know where to start.
Is there any other way to get a shared Emacs session? This page from the Emacs Wiki refers to something called multi-tty. The questions I asked above also apply to this.
Which is better: multi-tty or make-frame-on-display?
I haven't tried multi-tty, but make-frame-on-display is pretty simple. You type M-x make-frame-on-display, hit return, then type the display you want the frame to show up on. For example:
I have my local host (thor) running emacs and I want to make a frame pop up on a machine called zeus, on its only X display (0.0). So I would type M-x make-frame-on-display<ret>zeus:0.0<ret>
All set!
You may need to configure the remote machine's X server to accept incoming connections from your machine with "xhost +thor". You may also need to configure its firewall to allow incoming connections on the X11 port, which is 6000. Keep in mind that X forwarding is not encrypted, so if you aren't working with someone on your LAN you may want to go through a VPN in order to keep things private.
Edited to fix brackets.
You can also have the person at zeus type ssh -X thor emacsclient -c.
Did you ever consider using GNU screen on a shared account for pair programming? It's dead easy to get it to work and you get to pick any console based editor you and your partner like (emacs, vim, joe, nano, zile, ...). However, this does of course not work with editors that cannot run inside a terminal.
To set it up, create a shared account on a computer running ssh. Then both log in to that account. One of the partners starts screen with
screen
and the other connects to it with
screen -x
where -x means "attach to a not detached screen session". The users can detach from their sessions w/ "C-a d".
Old question, new solution for anyone landed on this page from year 2016.
I set this up in Ubuntu 14.04 and it works perfectly:
Suppose I want to co-edit or demo some cool stuffs on emacs with my colleague Joe on the other end of the world.
Make sure an ssh server with emacs installed at either end. That is, either MyPC or JoePC must be a SSH server and have Emacs installed. From now on, let's say I asked Joe to install SSH server and Emacs on his computer.
Make sure byobu is installed on JoePC. Byobu supports both tmux and screen as backends (I prefer tmux for a more mordern and feature-rich).
I connect to JoePC with ssh remoteuser#joepc. No need for X-forwarding.
Open emacs from byobu-ssh terminal: TERM=xterm-256color && emacsclient --alternate-editor="" -t. One can make an alias for this command. I recommend this long command because it enables both better color support in the terminal and running Emacs in daemon mode. The daemon mode make it fast to close and reopen frames.
Now the magic unfold: Ask Joe to login with the same remoteuser I am loggin in; open the terminal and start byobu if it hasn't for him.
Start hacking or fumbling :-)
Comment:
Because the way byobu work. This approach works for any other program inside the byobu terminal.
This setup performs much better than Teamviewer or any other GUI remote desktop solutions.
Because the connection is through ssh to the remote server directly, it is as secure as the ssh conenction can offer.