Tony Schreiner schreian@bc.edu wrote:
I'm trying to run an application (rasmol - molecule viewing program) which when using the the default setup for x11 forwarding causes the following error:
X Error of failed request: BadAccess (attempt to access private resource denied) Major opcode of failed request: 132 (MIT-SHM) Minor opcode of failed request: 1 (X_ShmAttach) Serial number of failed request: 230 Current serial number in output stream: 231
It used to be possible to overcome this by setting
X11UseLocalhost no
in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
This worked in CentOS 3 but does not in CentOS 4 (or Fedora 4 for that matter), and I'm guessing it is a XFree86 vs. Xorg issue.
Now, when using X11UseLocalhost no
no X applications work
ssh myserver # echo $DISPLAY myserver.fqdn:10.0 # xdpyinfo xdpyinfo: unable to open display "myserver.fqdn:10.0".
It appears that in FC4 setting 'X11UseLocalhost no' causes sshd to listen for X connections only on the IPV6 port:
$ netstat -ant | grep 6010 tcp 0 0 :::6010 :::* LISTEN
I'd say this was a bug, and indeed there is such a report in the openssh bugzilla, but it's supposed to have been fixed years ago. I've tried forcing sshd to use IPV4 only (with the -4 flag) but that just gets me back into the land of X authentication failures.
The problem with rasmol is that it tries to use the X shared memory extension if it thinks it's running on the same host as the X server. To rasmol an ssh-forwarded X connection looks like a local connection, so it tries to use shared memory and fails. The 'X11UseLocalhost no' trick works because it makes the forwarded connection look like a connection to a remote machine so the application falls back to using an alternative.
Looking at the source for rasmol I see that it uses this test to determine if it can use MIT-SHM:
ptr = DisplayString(dpy); if( !ptr || (*ptr==':') || !strncmp(ptr,"localhost:",10) || !strncmp(ptr,"unix:",5) || !strncmp(ptr,"local:",6) )
So even with 'X11UseLocalhost yes' it might be possible to fool it into not using MIT-SHM by setting your DISPLAY to '127.0.0.1:10.0' (or whatever).
Ron