question on x windows

[Romeo Theriault]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Aaron Bliss <abliss at brockport.edu> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> I have a user who would like to connect to x windows on one of our linux
> servers.  I'm not use to offering up x windows to any end users (I'm a
> command line guy) so I'm struggling with this a bit.  I've installed x
> font server, daemon is running, and I installed xfce.  Server is running
> at run level 5 right now.  I'm not sure what ports I need to open on the
> firewall to allow them to connect to the server or what other config
> files that might be preventing them from displaying an x session on
> their desktop (they have a windows x server running on their machines).
> I know that x windows sessions are insecure, so I would also be in favor
> of forwarding the session over ssh, but I would like to know how to
> connect with and without ssh to the xfs server.  Thanks for your help.
>
> Aaron
>

Here are some notes I've kept on how to setup remote X11 forwarding.

Remote X Display

You need to make sure that you have your local X display set to accept
remote X connections. On a Fedora {red hat?? probably the same} box you need
to edit the the /etc/gdm/custom.conf and set the DissallowTCP=false:

[security]
# Adding the following to the [security] section will
# allow TCP connections to the X server
DisallowTCP=false


   - Then you need to restart gdm. This can be done by the gdm-restart
   command. Note: Running gdm-restart while in a X11 session will kill your
   session and all of your applications running in it.


   - Next you need to make sure that your firewall allows connections to
   port 6000 which is the X11 port.


   - Next on the local machine type: xhost +remote_machine.host.name.edu

# xhost +remote_host.domain.edu


   - Then on the remote machine in a bash shell type:

# export DISPLAY=local_host.name.edu:0.0


   - You should now be able to start any remote X11 application on the
   remote host and have it display on your local machine.

# xterm &

 Should popup a xterm on your local display.





-- 
Romeo Theriault
System Administrator
Information Technology Services
Ph#: 207-561-3517
Em@: romeo.theriault at maine.edu