Re: running x over ssh?

[Cameron Simpson <cs zip com au>]

[ BTW, could you _please_ take the tiny amount of effort needed to trim for
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]

| > | > | 	I was wondering if it's possible to run x windows over 
| > an ssh link? If
| > | > Sure. I'm doing it right now. Set the "ForwardX11 flag in your 
| > | > ~/.ssh/config:
| > | > 	Host *
| > | > 		ForwardX11 yes
| > | > to do it by default. For a per-command instance, on the command 
| > | > line:
| > | > 	ssh -o 'forwardx11 yes' hostname
| > | 	Ok, thank you. I did that, now it's saying when I run 
| > startx that it
| > | can't connect to display.
| > 
| > I think we misunderstand each other. The above if for sshing to a 
| > remote host
| > _after_ starting X, so that the remote host can run X programs and 
| > have them
| > appear on your screen.  Can you describe your situation in more 
| > detail? And
| > exactly what you're doing, in what order?
| 	What I'd like to have happen is start an ssh session in to a machine,
| then load x, so that the output appears on my ssh terminal.

I think you're confused.

To display X apps (indeed, any kind of GUI) something must do the drawing
on _your_ screen, because that's what displaying things to you.

Startx does this:

	- starts an X server (to do the drawing)
	- runs a shell script embodying you X session (clients, wm etc)

The X server must have access to the display hardware. Running startx
at the remote end is nonsensical, because that's not where the display is.

You want to be running an X server at your _local_ end first.  So run
run an X server on your local box. If you're running UNIX of some kind,
run startx like normal. If you're running something else (eg windows)
then you need a X server for windows. We use XWin32 from StarNet, but
there are several other choices in this area.

Having startx an X server, you can _then_ ssh to the far end. There,
you don't need to run a server, merely run arbitrary X clients. They
will tunnel back through your ssh connection to talk to the X server on
your local box, which will then display them to you.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743        cs zip com au    http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/

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