Installing agent on headless Linux host

Remote Support and Access
1

I’ve read this [Installing agent on ubuntu server 19.04] but it doesn’t quite address the issue I’m seeing.

In my setup, we want to deploy SimpleHelp RemoteAccess to headless / non-GUI / non-X11 environments. I know how to install RemoteAccess with the ‘/S’ standalone option, at that works fine, so long as I have X11 components installed - and installing these X11 components is not an option for these deployments.

I’m using the latest installer from via wget 'http://sh51.simplehelp.io/access/Remote%20Access-linux64-online.tar'

The issue is that the binary in the TAR file is dynamically linked against a number of X11 shared libraries:

: ldd Remote\ Access-linux64-online
…
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007fc5b8084000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007fc5b66e0000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007fc5b64da000)
…

Are there versions of the RemoteAccess installer and runtime that do not have these X11 dependencies ?

2

I don’t think it is available but it is a very good idea that should be presented to the developers

3

Do you have any timeframe for an answer on this request ? Knowing this I can then plan my integration of SimpleHelp to our solution appropriately.

4

I would open a support ticket.
I had a headless install a few years back. If I remember correctly there is an install switch I had to use.

5

What flavor of Linux are you using? I want to replicate this behavior.

6

In my specific instance, this is a custom Linux disto my company works on. But please note, the issue is not specific to a specific Linux distro.

If you have a Linux install that does not have the any of the X11 libraries installed then you will see the issue I’ve described (eg a clean Ubuntu 18.04 server install, and then ‘apt purge libx11-6’, or any number of application container environments)

When you try to execute the installer on a platform without the X11 shared libraries installed, the Linux ld.so linker/loader will fail to start the installer. This will fail before any installer application starts to execute, so ‘command line arguments’ will not assist, as the application will be terminated before any application code is executed.

I appreciate that I will not be able to use the SimpleHelp remote desktop for these applications - but that is not what we want to utilise. Ideally we want to use the SimpleHelp remote shell support only (these are non-GUI application servers, so having a ‘remote desktop’ adds no value), to allow us to integrate these systems into a single environment for both desktop and non-desktop that our support staff can use from the 1 portal.

7

I’m assuming you’re removing the x11 bits due to security vulnerabilities - of which there haven’t been any CVEs for it in like 10 years. In the cases of things like that, I would use an on site simple help host and then ssh into whatever I needed.

8

I appreciate the comment about X11 security vulnerabilities, but no, this is not the reason we are not deploying X11 libraries (other inhouse / solution reasons preclude the X11 libraries from being deployed).
If the X11 libraries are a long term requirement to deploy SimpleHelp - then this is something we will need to consider if we were to adopt this as our solution for Linux platforms.