Adding secure connectivity for remote administration of CentOS with NX Server

Having been part of IT, there had always been adventure around the next key stroke, call or email. This go around, I had wanted to take a few minutes to document some steps in getting remote connectivity to work on a flavor of Unix, CentOS. Now let me contrast this by saying, Unix’s strong suit had always been the level of customization. The question had been knowing which pieces to squeeze together for certain administrative task. On that note, here had been the steps for getting remote connectivity setup up for an install of NXServer on CentOS below.

Before proceeding, a target system had required an install of CentOS (6.x) with all the default settings. I had performed the following steps on server and Windows 7 desktop.

Logged on to CentOS server locally.
Elevated permissions in terminal by typing, su
Entered password (i.e. root password, etc..)
Entered, yum install nx freenx
Allowed the installation to complete.
Switched directories with the following command, cd /etc/nxserver
Modified configuration file with VI by entering in the following command, Vi node.conf
Started data insert with vi by typing, I
Located the following variable and set to 1, ENABLE_PASSDB_AUTHENTICATION=”1″
Pressed the ESC key.
Saved the file the follow key combination, :q
Added user enter to nx server with, nxserver –adduser packetfence
Generated a client key type, cat /var/lib/nxserver/home/.ssh/client.id_dsa.key
Copied the results into notepad for use on your desktop, Windows 7
Launched Windows NX client on Windows.
Modified NX client from dialog box, clicking CONFIGURE.
Clicked the GENERAL tab.
Selected KEY.
Pasted the key from #12 into the field.
Selected KDE for session for desktop
Saved changes and attempted to logon. It failed.
Went to CentOS server, entered, service sshd restart
Then followed-up with the next command, chkconfig sshd on
Important, chkconfig sshd on command ensuresd that the SSH service started on boot.
Relaunched the NX client and attempt to connect.This time it connected successfully.
Rebooted server and verified remote login again.