Today I came across the problem that I had to run a Linux X-Server application on a Server, which has no X-Server installed.
Since I didn't want to mess around with the installation (by installing a fullblown xserver and all it's friends), I thought using XForward configuration should do it.
As extra challenge, I ran the X-Server on a windows machine.
First of all, download + install cygwin. When installing, be sure to select xauth package (it's not enabled by default, but important for the XForward process).
You may have to do some changes to your server configuration like the Cygwin FAQ says, but on the remote ubuntu machine XForwardTrusted was already set to [em]yes[/em].
Now open your cygwin console and type:
startx
Now open yet another cygwin console and type:
ssh -Y [email protected] -p12345
where name is your username, example.org is your server name (or ip) and 12345 is the servers ssh port (default is 22, though). The
-Y (the capital Y is important) tries to connect with ForwardXTrusted, thats what we enabled some lines earlier.
You'll be right on the ssh server and can type [em]xterm[/em] or whatever application you want to run. No extra configuration!
The best about all that, you don't have forward router ports or anything!
