[CentOS] Enabling X on headless server via network

Sun Jul 25 16:10:00 UTC 2010
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 18:26, Hakan Koseoglu <hakan at koseoglu.org> wrote:
>> I'm not sure what you are trying to do. Using VNC server or ssh with
>> X11 tunneling (-X or -Y) would make more sense.
>> You don't need X itself running for either of these.
>>
> 
> Yes, my intention is to ssh in then run the app like this:
> local$ ssh -X user at remote
> remote$ firefox
> 
> However, when I do this I get no response (no firefox window opens, no
> terminal output), even after several minutes. I figured that was
> because X is not running.

I think you need to use -Y instead of -X these days but I've never understood 
which apps care.  Also, firefox is unusual in that if it is already running for 
a user it will try to tell the running copy to open a new window in its existing 
context instead of opening a new one that can be forwarded (but you'd only see 
that if you had X running elsewhere).

What you are trying should work without running X at the console, but you might 
like the freenx/NX client even better.  That gives you a complete remote X 
desktop with very good performance that you can disconnect and reconnect with 
everything still running.  See www.nomachine.com for the client 
(linux/windows/mac) details but you can get freenx from the epel repo.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com