X11 Forwarding
From CS Wiki
This Howto describes how to forward X11, Linux's windowing system, to your current machine. With X11 forwarding you can run programs on a remote machine and have it appear and control it on your current machine as if it were running locally. The CS Department's Linux row machines allow X11 forwarding.
Contents |
Mac
X11 is available as an optional install on the Mac OS X v10.3 Panther, and Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger install disks. Run the Installer, select the X11 option, and follow the instructions. Or can download it here: X11.dmg. The installer puts X11 in Applications->Utilities. Double click the X11 icon and X11 will appear in the dock. You now have X11 running on your Mac.
You can now log in to Linux row and forward X11 with this command:
ssh -X username@linux.cs.mtsu.edu
Linux
Congradulations! You have X11 installed. No work for you. You can forward X with the following command:
ssh -X username@linux.cs.mtsu.edu
Windows
Most current PC systems, running Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, should satisfy the X-Deep/32 system requirements. At least 55MB of disk space are needed for installation.
Download the installation file xdp40Basic.exe (~ 9MB) to your PC's desktop. Do this by right-clicking the following link and selecting "Save Target As..." (or, in Netscape/Mozilla, "Save Link As...") http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/xdp40Basic.exe
Locate and execute this downloaded file by (double) clicking its file icon. Once installation begins, you should see the following screen:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/InstallSplash.jpg
Click on the Next button and continue to read and respond to the installation queries on the next few screens. Use the suggested defaults. Once you have responded to all the queries, the installation will go into a (short) file unpacking/copying phase:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/InstallProgress.jpg
Once all the files are installed, the following window will be presented. Remove the check mark next to View Readme File and click the OK button.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/InstallFinished.jpg
The final window opened by the installation (it may take a while) is the following Start Menu items display. We do not need this window displayed.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/StartMenuItems.jpg
X-Deep_32 Start Menu Close the \Start Menu\Programs\X-Deep_32 40 window. Continue on to the next section and configure the X-Deep/32 server.
Configuring
Start the X-Deep/32 program by (double) clicking its file icon.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/ServerIcon.jpg
Once the program in invoked, the first screen you will see is this
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/SelectNetworkInterface1.jpg
You will need to modify two settings on this screen as indicated below. Highlight the IP: [127.0.0.1] entry in the list (it should be the last entry). Also, remove the check mark from the "Always show this dialog box." option.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/SelectNetworkInterface2.jpg
Once you have modified these settings, click the Select button to continue. If all goes well, the following will be displayed on your screen for a short while:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/DetectingRemoteHosts.jpg
Eventually one of two possible screens will appear, depending on your network connection. Either you will get the following "No XDM Host Found in the Network" screen:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/NoXDM.jpg
or the following Local XDM Chooser window will appear. (Although your window will be similar to the one below, do not be surprised if there are entries in the list area---ignore any such entries.)
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/LocalXDMchooser1.jpg
Local XDM Chooser Window Regardless of which screen you got, remove the check mark from the "Always check for XDM enabled hosts on startup." option.
Once the check mark is removed, either click the OK button or, if you got the Local XDM Chooser window, click the Normal Mode button, as shown below.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/LocalXDMchooser2.jpg
Next, a full-screen display (called the Root Window) similar to the following will be displayed.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/RootWindowInitial.jpg
Pull down the options menu for this window by clicking on the options button on the upper left side of the window frame (pinpointed above by the red arrow). Without releasing the mouse button, select the X-Server Menu as shown in the next picture.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/RootWindowOptions.jpg
...and finally select the X-Server Options entry, as shown next:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/XserverOptions.jpg
The X-Deep/32 X Server Options window should now display. This is a tabbed window. We need to change two of the tabbed sections. First click on the Window Modes tab and make the changes shown:
BEFORE: http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/WindowModes1.jpg
AFTER: http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/WindowModes2.jpg
On clicking the Apply button, a pop-up will appear. The system will ask if you want to restart the X-server program. Answer no by clicking the No button.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/RestartWindowModesNo.jpg
Next click on the Security tab and make the change shown:
BEFORE: http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/Security1.jpg
AFTER: http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/Security2.jpg
On clicking the Apply button, a pop-up will again appear. The system will ask if you want to restart the X-server program. Answer yes this time by clicking the Yes button.
- Note: This will only restart the X-server program, not the entire computer.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/RestartSecurityYes.jpg
That completes the X-Deep/32 server configuration.
Starting the X-Deep/32 server
Whenever the X-Deep/32 server is running, the start tray (in the lower right corner of the monitory display) will display the X-Deep/32 server icon, resembling the icon pointed to by the the red arrow in the following picture:
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/StartTrayIcon.jpg
- Note: If you just completed the configuration steps above, the server will be running because of the restart.
If the server is not running, start the X-Deep/32 program by (double) clicking the program icon on the desktop.
http://www.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/ServerIcon.jpg
Connect and Forward
If you don't already have the PuTTY program, you can download it from this link http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.exe. Remember where you put the putty.exe file; a good place to put it is inside the C:\xdeep32_40 directory.
To create your own customized Linux row PuTTY shortcut icon, put a shortcut to the putty.exe executable binary file on your desktop. Right-click the putty shortcut icon, select Properties, and then click on the Shortcut tab. Locate the "Target:" box; it will contain a line that invokes PuTTY. For example, if the putty.exe file is located in the C:\xdeep32_40 directory, the "Target:" box will contain C:\xdeep32_40\putty.exe (on some systems, this may be enclosed in quotation marks: "C:\xdeep32_40\putty.exe") and append the following items to the end of what is there:
-X -ssh linux.cs.mtsu.edu
- NOTE: If your system had the quotation marks, append after the last quotation mark.
For example, if the putty.exe file was located in the C:\xdeep32_40 directory, the modified properties menu should look something like this:
http://www.cs.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/FrankPuttyProp.jpg
Rename the shortcut icon to read linux PuTTY.
If you are not already connected to the Internet, do so now. (Double) clicking on one of the customized PuTTY shortcuts will connect you to the specified computer.
- NOTE: The first time you use PuTTY to connect to a system, it is likely you will get a PuTTY Security Alert pop-up. Click Yes to carry on connecting:
http://www.cs.mtsu.edu/~untch/share/XDP/PuTTYalert.jpg
To run an X application, like nedit or xterm, an X server must already be running. Assuming an X server is running, at the UNIX prompt in the PuTTY window, simply enter the command that starts the X application.
For example, to start nedit, enter the UNIX command
nedit filename &
