[2024-feb-29] Sad news: Eric Layton aka Nocturnal Slacker aka vtel57 passed away on Feb 26th, shortly after hospitalization. He was one of our Wiki's most prominent admins. He will be missed.

Welcome to the Slackware Documentation Project

Remote X: Windows to Linux

Plain Ol' Vanilla Remote X11

1) Install Xming and Xming-fonts

2) Add the Linux machine's DNS name(s) and/or IP address to the C:\Program Files\xming\X0.hosts file. File should look something like:

  Linux1.mydomain.com
  Linux1
  192.168.1.25

3) Start Xming

  • (NOT XLaunch)

4) Start the connection: Connect to the Linux machine via ssh/telnet/rlogin/whatever and run:

   DISPLAY=WINDOWS_IP:0;export DISPLAY;APPLICATION_YOU_WANT_TO_RUN
   EXAMPLE: DISPLAY=192.168.1.10:0;export DISPLAY;xterm

Minimize the telnet session, do not close it. If you close it, your X11 connection will close.


PROBLEMS

PROBLEM: “Xlib: connection to YOUR_IP refused by server”
FIX: Check the Xming log, it probably contains “Xming.exe: client 4 rejected from IP YOUR_IP”. If so,

  1. close Xming
  2. Make sure that the DNS names and/or IPs are in the C:\Program Files\xming\X0.hosts file
  3. restart Xming

FIX2: If problem is not fixed, restart Xming with the -ac option.

PROBLEM: Map starts but then I get a font error from OpenView.
FIX: Install the Xming-fonts onto your Windows box.

PROBLEM: When starting Xming, a Windows Security Alert pops up saying Windows Firewall has blocked this program.
FIX: Change Windows Firewall setting to allow Xming.
FIX2: Disable Windows Firewall by going to Services, setting Windows Firewall to MANUAL START and then stop the service.

PROBLEM: Cannot connect to Xming and I have checked all of the above.
FIX: When starting Xming as display 0, Windows Firewall does not complain. Check to see if Windows Firewall is blocking the connection.

Remote X11 Over SSH

1) Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_conf on the remote (Slackware) machine.

   CHANGE:
   #X11Forwarding no
   
   TO:
   X11Forwarding yes
   
   CHANGE:
   #X11UseLocalhost yes
   
   TO:
   X11UseLocalhost yes

2) Install Putty (if it's not already installed).

   www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

3) Open putty and fill in the “Host Name” box.

4) Under Category > Connection > SSH > X11 check the “Enable X11 forwarding” box.

5) Click the “Open” button to start the connection.

6) Log into the remote machine as you would do in a normal SSH session.

7) Start the X application from the command line, a window should open on your local machine with the application.

(It's basically a regular SSH session with putty but with X11 forwarding enabled.)

Sources

 howtos:window_managers:remotex_windows2linux ()