Recon-X: Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Recon-X?
2. What kind of remote sessions does Recon-X allow?
3. How does Recon-X compare with VNC?
4. Who needs Recon-X and why?
5. What server platforms are supported?
6. What about support for HP-UX. AIX, Slackware and other UNIX and Linux flavors? Can I still use Recon-X?
7. Do I need root access to install Recon-X on the host?
8. Do I install Recon-X on every host?
9. Does Recon-X work with any PC X server?
10. How is Recon-X licensed?
11. Does each Session require a separate Recon-X license?
12. I already have X-Win32, Exceed or ReflectionX. Do I have to buy a new copy or upgrade?

1. What is Recon-X?

Recon-X is a revolutionary new product that adds completely new functionality to PC X servers such as X-Win32, Hummingbird Exceed and WRQ's ReflectionX:

• Suspend & Resume: Suspend a remote session, turn off your PC and resume the session after restarting your Windows machine.
• Crash Recovery: Whether the PC X server creashes, the Windows PC goes down, or you lose your network connections, your remote sessions stay alive and Recon-X lets you reconnect to them.
• Session Mobility: Recon-X even lets you suspend your sessions on one PC and resume them from another machine, such as in a conference room or from a home PC.
• High Speed: Recon-X dramatically increases PC X server performance over VPN connections, or DSL and Cable connections.

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2. What kind of remote sessions does Recon-X allow?

Recon-X v1 allows you to bring up a full Unix/Linux desktop (Gnome, KDE or CDE) from which you can start applications. Release 2 will add the ability to set up individual rootless x windows.

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3. How does Recon-X compare with VNC?

Quite well, in many important ways:

• Recon-X allows you to use the PC X server of your choice (X-Win32, Exceed, ReflectionX). It protects your investment in the PC X server you already use.
• VNC has problems with lagging mouse responses as well as a general 'fuzziness' for graphic images such as chip designs. Recon-X offers the same display quality you would see ont he Unix/Linux console.
• Thanks to compression, Recon-X consumes very little network bandwidth. VNC sessions act as huge hogs on the network and can bring network performance to its knees.
• Recon-X comes with StarNet corporate technical and engineering suppport. With VNC, you are on your own when you experience a problem.

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4. Who needs Recon-X and why?

Anyone using a PC X server to connect to applications that are running on a remote host. Recon-X allows you to turn off your computer at the end of the day and reconnect to the application after rebooting in the morning. Not having to shut down all of your remote applications each day and bring them back up the next day will savey ou valable time. And of course, the ability to recover sessions after a crash or to work effectively over slow connections vastly enhances the use of a PC X server.

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5. What server platforms are supported?

Recon-X v1 can be installed on the Linux and Solaris servers:

• Sun Solaris 8, 9 & 10
• Red Hat Enterprise 3 & 4
• Red Had Fedora Core 3 & 4
• SuSE 9.2 & 9.3

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6. What about support for HP-UX. AIX, Slackware and other Unix and Linux flavors? Can I still use Recon-X?

Yes, you can still use Recon-X. Although support for other server platforms is currently not available, you can use any server based on the supported platforms and use that as the "Recon-X hub." So you connect to that machine and from there start applications on an unsupported server. Since Unix and Linux servers almost never crash, you get al of the same benefits from Recon-X, except for a bit more traffic on the network since the connections will be indirect.

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7. Do I need root access to install Recon-X on the host?

Yes.

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8. Do I install Recon-X on every host?

Typically it is a good idea to because then you can make a direct connection from the PC to that host. However, you can also set up Recon-X on just one machine (such as in a server farm with too many hosts), and then connect the applications from there.

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9. Does Recon-X work with any PC X server?

Yes, it should, even with open sourced ones. However, most PC X servers havea number of bugs, some of which may affect the performance of Recon-X. Currently we are only aware of one major issue with ReflectionX, where keyboard strokes are not recognized. We are currently trying to determine if it is a Recon-X or ReflectionX problem.

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10. How is Recon-X licensed?

There are no up-front licensing fees. You pay a small annual maintenance fee per user (each user can have multiple PCs). You can also install the server packages on as many machines ad you would like for no additional fee.

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11. Does each Session require a separate Recon-X license?

No! Each licensed user can start as many Recon-X sessions on as many host systems as they want.

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12. I already have X-Win32, Exceed or ReflectionX. Do I have to buy a new copy or upgrade?

No. You only have to purchase a copy of Recon-X at $79.00 per user, per year. There is also a volume discount available.