Tunneling the X Window System over SSH

Instructions for MacOS X and Linux 

System Requirements 

• X11 should be installed

Use 

• From a terminal window, type ssh -X <hostname or IP>. (note: the switch -X is a capital X) 
• Type in the command to launch the desired application (ex. xterm &).

Instructions for Windows 

System Requirements

• X Window Server software: (freeware) Cygwin/X, Xming, WeirdMind and WeirdX or (proprietary/commercial)MKS X/Server, Reflection X, Xmanager, X-Deep/32, WiredX, Exceed and X-Win32
• SSH Client: WinSSH, PuTTy, etc

Use

• Start your X Window Server software.
• Start your SSH client.
• Configure your SSH client to allow X11 tunneling (for most graphical SSH clients follow the steps below)
  • Go to the configure connection screen.
  • Go to tunneling and click the check box to enable tunneling for X11 connections.
• Connect to the remote host and log in.
• Enter/type the command to launch the desired application (ex. xterm &).

Resources

• ITS Alert post #651
• http://www.cag.lcs.mit.edu/~wentzlaf/faq/ssh_X.html
• http://csociety.ecn.purdue.edu/~sigos/projects/ssh/forwarding/