Take Control (SolarWinds) - Linux Viewer

Although you can initiate a Take Control (SolarWinds) connection from Windows, Mac computers, iOS and Android devices, we realize that you may want to provide support to your customers from a Linux computer.

As such, we have included a Take Control (SolarWinds) Viewer for Linux devices which deploys using the .deb (Debian packaging system) or .rpm (Red Hat Package Manager) and is available for computers running Debian, Red Hat or SUSE distributions.

For a list of tested distributions and browsers please go to Take Control (SolarWinds) Linux Viewer - Support Distributions and browsers.

To install the viewer on your Linux computer:

  1. Log on to the Linux computer as a local user (non-root)
  2. Log in to your Monitoring Dashboard
  3. Go to Remote Access
  4. Download Take Control Viewer - SolarWinds

    5. A Viewer that corresponds to the Operating System of the computer you are using to access the Dashboard is automatically downloaded

  5. Unpack the downloaded *.tar.gz file
  6. Open a terminal
  7. Navigate to the extracted filesÂ’ location and run the install_takecontrol.sh command. For example:
  8. Enter the sudo (root) password where prompted

    9. The Take Control Viewer for your distribution automatically installs, along with any required dependencies

  9. Click OK in The Take Control Viewer was successfully installed dialog

KDE Note (Post-installation)

In KDE, the user must log off and log in (or restart the computer) to complete the installation of the Take Control (SolarWinds) Viewer.                                                                        

Red Hat (Pre-installation)

When testing in Red Hat we noticed that it may be necessary to add root to the sudoers file in the /etc directory before running the Take Control Viewer installer.  The following example achieves this using vi to edit the sudoers file:

Open a terminal then enter the following commands:

  1. su and enter password to confirm
  2. cd /etc
  3. ls -l
  4. chmod +w sudoers
  5. vi sudoers
  6. In the User privilege specification section (or equivalent) enter:

    7. root ALL=(ALL) ALL

  7. :wq
  8. chmod -w sudoers

Command

Note

su and enter password to confirm

Change the login sessionÂ’s owner to root

cd /etc

Change directory to /etc

ls -l

Long file directory list

chmod +w sudoers

Makes the sudoers file editable

vi sudoers

Opens the sudoers file in vi

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Adds the root entry in the sudoers file with full permissions.

:wq

Save changes and exit vi

chmod -w sudoers

Makes the sudoers file read-only again