Problems

Various issues kept on cropping up during the software configuration. The most common source of error is an incorrect key configuration – that is, the file permissions are not set correctly. To troubleshoot this, first check to see whether you can access the private key. Also ensure that the account on which the ICA is running can access the public key. If this does not solve the problem, you might want to check out the logfiles (/tmp/italc_client.log on the students' machines and /tmp/italc_master.log on the teacher's machine).

Besides incorrectly set permissions for the keys, firewalls often prevent connections being set up. Make sure that the /usr/bin/ica and /usr/bin/italc programs have inward- and outward-bound access to ports 5900 and 5858, respectively. See the iTalc Wiki for additional tips [4].

Conclusions

The developers have put in some good work to make iTalc a nicely rounded package for deployment in classroom situations. Critical functions are available intuitively via buttons and drop-down menus. If you select a distribution that has iTalc in its repository, the installation and configuration should also be fairly trivial. With budgets in education as tight as ever, the software really does seem to be a worthwhile alternative.