X inside VE
There are several ways to run X applications inside your VE.
Contents
X forwarding
To run an X application inside a VE, one need simply to connect to a VE with ssh -X:
host# ssh -2 -c blowfish -X user@address
After login to VE check that $DISPLAY
variable is set and X11 forwarding is enabled:
ve# echo $DISPLAY localhost:10.0
In case $DISPLAY
is not set, make sure that X forwarding is enabled in sshd
config inside VE. In most Linux distros sshd configuration is stored in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
. You should set parameter X11Forwarding
to yes
. Also VE should contain xauth
package, thus install xauth
if it is missing (in Debian this is part of the xbase-clients package). After that, restart your sshd daemon:
ve# /etc/init.d/sshd restart
Note: Don't forget to reconnect after this |
Now you can run X applications from your VE:
ve# firefox
Note, that if you want to run complete X window environment (including window manager), you should kill local window manager and run only pure X server. Secondly you shoud use -Y option when invoking ssh. And if you want to run gnome/kde/..., don't forget to increase UBC limits, 'cause default values are certainly too small for these monsters. ;)
VNC for X desktop
First, one need to run Xvnc server inside VE. The easiest way for this is to run vncserver script. This scripts starts all the required services and small http daemon which provides graphical web access to your desktop (via Java applet).
ve# vncserver -name mydesktop New 'mydekstop' desktop is ve:1 Starting applications specified in ~/.vnc/xstartup Log file is ~/.vnc/ve:1.log
Now when your desktop is up and running you can connect to it using vncviewer command:
host# vncviewer <VE_IP>:1
If the VNC desktop is the same size or larger than your X desktop, you will see scroll bars on the bottom and the side. This is often inconvenient. You may reduce your VNC desktop to a more reasonable size like this:
vncserver -geometry 1000x650
This setting works quite well for a 1024 by 768 X desktop setting.
Starting KDE desktop with VNC
To start KDE desktop instead of default twm one replace twm &
line with startkde &
in user's
~/.vnc/xstartup
file on the VE.
Connecting with VNC from firewalled network
VNC uses 590x TCP ports for its connections. These ports can be firewalled in many networks so in order to be able to connect to remote side one need to tunnel VNC connections somehow. A usuall ssh can be used for tunneling VNC connections as described below.
localhost# ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 <remote host>
where <remote host> is the name of the system you want to connect to. When you are asked for a username and password enter your normal username and password. Then start the VNC session to localhost, i.e.
localhost# vncviewer localhost
Using xdm
It should be also possible to do remote X by running xdm inside VE and X -query <remote IP> :1
However VNC approach is much easier.
External links
- http://forum.openvz.org/index.php?t=tree&th=235&mid=1115&&rev=&reveal=
- http://ait.web.psi.ch/services/linux/kde-desktop-sharing.htm
- http://ait.web.psi.ch/services/ssh/vnc-ssh.html
- http://www.vnc.com/pipermail/vnc-list/2002-July/031831.html
- http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5499
- http://www.realvnc.com/pipermail/vnc-list/2002-March/029502.html
- http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-list/2003-December/msg01859.html
- http://faq.gotomyvnc.com/fom-serve/cache/56.html