ThinLinc provides a connection to a full, graphical desktop environment on a remote computer, including audio, local resource sharing (drives/printers/etc.), and smart card authentication.

It operates over the secure SSH protocol and utilizes optimized variants of VNC, PulseAudio, and NFS to provide a responsive computing environment over the Internet or enterprise networks.

Getting the Software

Managed workstations

ThinLinc is pre-installed on instructional computers in IST Open-Area Computer Labs, accessible from the INS Programs > Unix-Linux menu.

If you do not have administrative access to your IST-managed workstation, please create an IT Ticket.

Home / Mobile computers

Web Client

• HTML5 client (limited functionality)

Desktop Client

1. Download the ThinLinc software:

   • Software Distribution (Corpapps)
   • Windows
   • Mac OS
   • RedHat / Fedora
   • Debian / Ubuntu
   • Others
     

2. Install the software

3. Launch ThinLinc...

   • In the Connect window, enter the Server CCLDesktop.cc.umanitoba.ca, your UMnetID and password and click Connect
   • If asked about the server's host key fingerprint, it should read "db:b7:1f:3a:82:ae:23:b3:21:bd:ed:52:cd:17:51:6e". If so, click Continue.
   • A large window should appear with a desktop environment
   • IMPORTANT: To switch between fullscreen and windowed mode, press the F8 key

Configuration Tips

Before logging in, you can change the default options which will be used each time you start the ThinLinc client. Use the Advanced>> button to extend the window if it's not already. Click Options... to open the Options window.

• ThinLinc can be configured to start as a window or as fullscreen, on one monitor or all, and at a certain resolution:
  • In the Screen tab, select a resolution option in the top section and set whether to use fullscreen using the checkboxes at the bottom
• Local drives can be mounted using the desktop client.
  The feature is documented at
  https://www.cendio.com/resources/docs/tag/ch07s04.html#client_local_devices_tab
  
  Note that while this feature is available for convenience, it is not fully supported at the UofM.

Usage Policies

When not using ThinLinc, please conserve system resources for others by logging out of the environment. Closing the ThinLinc window does not end your session – instead:

• Click on your name, in the top-right of the screen,
• Select either “Log Out...” or the power icon, and
• Click “Log Out”

Sessions which are left idle for 4 days will be automatically disconnected, but continue to run on the server.

Sessions which have been disconnected for 21 days will be automatically terminated and any running processes or associated compute jobs will be terminated.

According our policy on Computationally-Intensive Processes the ThinLinc service is intended for interactive computing. Long-running or intensive batch jobs should instead be run on IST’s CC compute cluster.

More Information

If you have additional questions/feedback, please don’t hesitate to ask. Create an IT Ticket or send an email to servicedesk@umanitoba.ca with an info request for the Linux team

• General information on IST Linux
• Information on storage quotas and workspaces