Home ›

Remote Window Managers

Apr 29, 2008  By LJ Staff
 in

Lots of times it's extremely frustrating or time consuming to run an xterm on a remote host just to fork your programs from that remote machine. Why not just run your window manager there even though you're not on its console? The window manager is just another X application, after all, isn't it?

Fire off your local X server

xinit /usr/bin/xterm -- :1 &

yields a vanilla X session with merely an xterm running - no window manager. Now you need to add permissions to this window session for the remote host. You can tunnel the connection through SSH if your network is insecure but there's a distinct performance hit. If your network is secure, you can just "xhost +remotehost" and spray directly to your X server:

Tunneled SSH:

ssh -fY remotehost /usr/bin/wmaker

or spray directly:

xhost +remotehost
ssh -f remotehost /usr/bin/wmaker -display localmachine:1

The first option, if your remote SSH server supports it, will use a locally defined DISPLAY that then gets tunneled to your local side over SSH. The second option allows remotehost to send X data directly to your local display, then runs WindowMaker there but displaying it locally. Now all your desktop actions are done on the remote machine, not locally.

Our special thanks to Bill from Washington state for this tech tip.
__________________________

______________________

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

"Extremely frustrating"?

janpla's picture
Submitted by janpla (not verified) on Fri, 05/16/2008 - 09:18.

It seems like a lot of work - are you guys running Windows on desktop machines?

This is what I do - I find it works a charm; but then I run Linux on my desktop:

Open a local xterm or similar. Log on to the remote machine with 'ssh -X user@remote'. The '-X' means that X programs on the remote machine are displayed on your local desktop. No need for 'export DISPLAY' or 'xhost +'. You have to set up the configuration files on you local as well as remote machine, though (they are in /etc/ssh).

Couldn't make it run.

JM's picture
Submitted by JM (not verified) on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 16:24.

Its a pity that it does not work for me because I am needing desperately such a kind of feature for my system. I Installed wmaker in the remote host, but it didn't work. It says:

/usr/bin/wmaker fatal error: could not open display "CompUBUNTU:1"

where "compUBUNTU" is the name of my local machine which, by the way, runs a UBUNTU Hardy distro, while the remote host is running Fedora 8. It shouldn't be a network issue because the two computers are connected to the same LAN with no particular filters or firewalls between them.

Any suggestion?

And if you dislike Window Maker?

Jay Dugger's picture
Submitted by Jay Dugger on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 22:08.

Will this tech tip still work with a window manager that doesn't have a "-display" option, such as xmonad?

Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Used to do this

jonadair's picture
Submitted by jonadair (not verified) on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 07:55.

I used to do this, holy moley, 18 years ago. We had a lab full of Mac II's running Apple's A/UX. The machines struggled to run much besides the X server. Since I was already running most everything else remotely, one day I fired up TWM remotely and it worked reasonably well. So I hacked up my .xinitc so that when I started X on one of the A/UX boxes, it ran TWM and everything else from our 10 processor Sequent box.

Webcast
More Resources
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
More Resources
Private PaaS for the Agile Enterprise

If you already use virtualized infrastructure, you are well on your way to leveraging the power of the cloud. Virtualization offers the promise of limitless resources, but how do you manage that scalability when your DevOps team doesn’t scale? In today’s hypercompetitive markets, fast results can make a difference between leading the pack vs. obsolescence. Organizations need more benefits from cloud computing than just raw resources. They need agility, flexibility, convenience, ROI, and control.

Stackato private Platform-as-a-Service technology from ActiveState extends your private cloud infrastructure by creating a private PaaS to provide on-demand availability, flexibility, control, and ultimately, faster time-to-market for your enterprise.

Learn More

Sponsored by ActiveState