Ubuntu – How to launch a GUI session on a remote Ubuntu Desktop via SSH from a non-GUI Linux shell

displaygnomesshUbuntux11

I am setting up a test environment, made up of various Linux boxes, and I have the need to launch an instance of Firefox on a remote machine via ssh.

The remote machine has Ubuntu Desktop (11) and Firefox installed.

The source machine is a Continuous Integration server and it creates an ssh session to the remote machine from a non-GUI environment. It then runs a script, which tries to launch Firefox on the remote machine.

However, since the ssh session is a from a non-GUI environment, there is no display.

Is it possible to have a headless X-windows display? i.e. a virtual display in the remote environment for Firefox to run in? What options do I have?

Best Answer

You need a gui for firefox. But you have a couple of options:

1) Run Xorg on your host and display firefox here (ssh -Y user@remotehost)

2) Start vncserver on remote hosts, and run firefox in there

3) If xorg is already running on remote hosts, just allow local Xorg connections (xhost +127.0.0.1) on remote hosts, and start firefox with one of the following commands (first one should work, if not, try the second one):

DISPLAY=":0" firefox 
DISPLAY=":0" firefox -no-remote

Related Solutions

SSH – Launch a Screen Session with a Command Over SSH on a Remote Server

Try using the -t option to ssh

ssh -t root@my.machine screen "tail -f /var/log/messages"

From man ssh

-t      Force pseudo-tty allocation.  This can be used to execute arbi-
        trary screen-based programs on a remote machine, which can be
        very useful, e.g., when implementing menu services.  Multiple -t
        options force tty allocation, even if ssh has no local tty.

Ssh – Loading GUI on host machine through SSH with X11 forwarding

[This is really a superuser.com question, since there's no programming involved.]

The -X flag to ssh is specifically for sending the display back to the machine you ssh'ed from. To display on the machine you're ssh'ed to, instead you'd set the DISPLAY environment variable to that machines display (probably ":0" but may vary depending on configuration, virtual terminals, etc.), and make sure you have the right authentication set up to talk to that display (see the Xsecurity man page for details).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

SSH – Launch a Screen Session with a Command Over SSH on a Remote Server

Ssh – Loading GUI on host machine through SSH with X11 forwarding

Related Topic