Arch Linux

jstech

Member

From: Baltimore

Registered: 2004-05-06

Posts: 27

Running X only for ssh forwarding [solved]

I have a web host running Arch that I administer remotely. 99% of the time I get around fine with the console, but I find that sometimes I want to use an X program, like gvim or something to make it easier to copy/paste with my local machine. So I'm wondering if there's an easy way to run the X server only when I want it. My experience with X is limited to configuring it to run on my desktop, and typing "startx" when I log in. Any advice?

Last edited by jstech (2008-08-11 20:48:38)

Ramses de Norre

Member

From: Leuven - Belgium

Registered: 2007-03-27

Posts: 1,289

Re: Running X only for ssh forwarding [solved]

I don't have many experience with this neither, but what happens when you ssh -X in, install rxvt-unicode, xorg-server and xorg-server-utils and start urxvt? What errors do appear?

EDIT: if $HOST is your local host (the one you're running the X-client on), can you ssh -X in the server and run "X $HOST:1.0" to start an X-server on a local display? You can start urxvt in that X-session by running "DISPLAY=$HOST:1.0 urxvt" on the console running of the server.

I'm not able to test this myself, I'm only telling you what I'd try and hopefully it will bring you somewhere

Last edited by Ramses de Norre (2008-08-11 18:23:31)

jstech

Member

From: Baltimore

Registered: 2004-05-06

Posts: 27

Re: Running X only for ssh forwarding [solved]

Well, I went to try it again to get the error, and it worked. So I don't know what I did--maybe just logging out and logging back in (but I feel like I tried that earlier), but it's working now.

I thought that X forwarding only works when X is running on both the server and host (I'd read that somewhere), but I double-checked ps aux and it doesn't show X, so I guess I was wrong.

Thanks for the help, anyway.

my0pic

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2008-05-23

Posts: 206

Re: Running X only for ssh forwarding [solved]

X11 forwarding over ssh works fine without Xorg needing to be installed on the remote system. I use geany as a gui text editor using ssh -X on a headless server.