X over SSH

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2003 at 05:19:23AM -0400, Wizard wrote:
> I did get X forwarding working at least in part over SSH thanks to BLU, but
> I have a minor problem: I have an RH9 box that I want to forward the entire
> display from a Solaris 9 box to. I tried connecting and running Xsession,
> but after the Solaris 'starting CDE' screen, it just dropped back to the KDE
> Linux desktop and wouldn't work a second time. I can still forward any other
> X app that I've tried, but the whole desktop doesn't appear to work. I tried
> "dwm", "Xsun", and "fbconsole" but none appears to do anything (Xsun says
> it's already running). I was wondering if anyone has accomplished this or a
> similar task? Any suggestions? Even if I could just get the application
> panel from the bottom of the Sun display onto the RH box, I think I might be
> happy.

X has a completely different protocol for starting remote screens --
XDMCP, the X Display Manager Control Protocol. This negotiates access
for the entire screen. However, the protocol is both insecure and uses
UDP, so you cannot use SSH to forward it.

You have some choices, though:

1. Run IPsec or another VPN protocol instead of SSH.

2. Run a VNC server on the machine you want to export from, and a VNC
client on the machine you want to view on. VNC can be tunnelled with
SSH, and provides many of the benefits of 'screen'.

3. Run the CDE window manager remotely. Start an X session with an
xterm, but no window manager. From the xterm, SSH to your remote
machine. Start the CDE window manager. It should take over your screen.

HTH,

-dsr-

-- 
Network engineer / pre-sales engineer available in the Boston area.
http://tao.merseine.nu/~dsr