Screen blanking for physical desktop but have a virtual session in the background

[JPUCB]

We have NoMachine screen blanking enabled for physical security reasons. Sometimes our users are connected by NoMachine into their RHEL 8.10 Linux machines from Windows laptops while sitting next to those Linux machines. They want to be able to interact with the Linux machine directly in those instances, but screen blanking is preventing it.

Is it possible to configure the licensed version of NoMachine for Linux so the physical desktop session/console session would always be configured for screen blanking but have a second virtual session the user could connect to that doesn’t?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Britgirl]

Screen blanking blanks the physical screen, and the main physical session is on that physical screen which you just blanked 🙂 If local users want to be able to work on those Linux machines while the screen is still blanked, the product you need could be NoMachine Workstation from the NoMachine Terminal Server suite. This is a family of products available for Linux, and lets users have a physical desktop and a virtual session, one that is completely independent and with which you can interact even if the physical desktop is blanked, the physical desktop of the machine where the virtual session is running, is blanked.

Take a look at the following resources:
https://kb.nomachine.com/AR10K00700
https://www.nomachine.com/enterprise/terminal-server-products/workstation

[JPUCB]

Hello – thanks for the information here.  Conceptually, I’m still a bit confused though. As screen blanking blanks the physical screen, what does the Workstation version of the software do that would allow someone sitting next to the linux machine, while also being NoMachine-d into it from their Windows laptop, to interact with the keyboard and mouse of the linux machine?

I understand that virtual desktops can be configured, but how would virtual desktops help someone at the physical console of the linux machine? Wouldn’t screen blanking still be preventing any access?

[Britgirl]

If the user is working physically in front of the Linux machine looking at the monitor, using the mouse and keyboard, and then starts a virtual desktop session from their Windows laptop to that same machine (NoMachine Workstation must be installed), they will connect to a virtual display running in the background and completely independent from what is actually showing on the physical display. The monitor will therefore not be blanked.

Screen blanking occurs when a user connects remotely to the physical display. This is why, in the free edition, the screen is getting blanked: the user is starting a physical desktop session to a machine with screen blanking enabled.

 

[Author]

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