Wayland Lacks Network Transparency?
Hi Folks, I'm a bit concerned about Wayland. My signal processing users open multiple remote connections to multiple remote servers and forward their graphical displays to their local machines, many times using multiple virtual desktops on that one local machine. While X11 was designed with network transparency in mind, that requirement apparently wasn't considered important with Wayland. In other words, Wayland seems to be a regression to Windows. What will my users have to do to maintain network transparency? I've got a few generations of users who've collectively been using X11 since 1989 on SunOS hosts. Note that I'm not complaining, I just want to be prepared to continue providing a professional computing environment for some scientists and engineers. It sounds like Waypipe might work for us? We don't want to forward entire desktop environments, just the graphical output from specific applications, as with using ssh -X or -Y. Here's what ChatGPT says about the matter: Wayland does not natively offer the same built-in network transparency that X11 provides. In X11, remote graphical access is a core feature: you can run applications on one machine and display them on another over the network with minimal extra configuration. With Wayland, the protocol was designed with local security in mind, so it intentionally omits network transparency. This means that by default, Wayland does not allow you to simply forward a graphical application over SSH as you might with X11’s -X or -Y options. Remote Graphical Access on Wayland While Wayland itself doesn’t include native support for remote display, there are alternative approaches and tools: Third-Party Tools and Protocols: VNC/RDP: You can use a VNC server or an RDP server that’s compatible with your Wayland compositor. Some compositors (like Weston or GNOME’s Mutter) have experimental or third-party support for VNC or RDP backends. Waypipe: A tool designed to forward Wayland applications over SSH. It works similarly to X11 forwarding but is not built into the protocol itself. Remote Desktop Solutions: Solutions such as NoMachine or TeamViewer provide remote desktop capabilities that work on Wayland, though they rely on capturing and transmitting the screen rather than network transparency at the protocol level. Compositor-Specific Options: Some Wayland compositors may offer their own remote access features, but these are not standardized across all Wayland implementations. Summary X11: Has native network transparency; you can directly forward applications over SSH. Wayland: Does not include built-in network transparency for remote access. Remote graphical access under Wayland requires additional software (like VNC, RDP, or tools like waypipe) and may involve more configuration. Thus, while remote graphical access is possible with Wayland, it isn't as straightforward or natively supported as it is with X11. Regards, Lew
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 9:35 AM Lew Wolfgang <wolfgang@sweet-haven.com> wrote:
Windows window system is not network transparent. Remote Desktop functionality is available for Wayland too.
What will my users have to do to maintain network transparency?
Nobody was using X11 native network transparency for years if not decades. XDMCP is disabled by default for as long as I remember. OK, probably except SSH X11 forwarding but it is suitable for only very simplistic use cases.
You need to explain your use case and what exactly you are using from X11.
to forward entire desktop environments, just the graphical output from specific applications, as with using ssh -X or -Y.
As I already said - it is generally not possible with modern desktop environments. They rely on session D-Bus for communication, and it is not forwarded anyway. If your only concern is programs from the 1989 SunOS era - Xwayland is still there and usable.
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 7:54 AM Andrei Borzenkov <arvidjaar@gmail.com> wrote:
I don't think 'Nobody' is an accurate assessment. I will agree that the number of users is perhaps too few to make it a core design feature. I too am interested in being able to do a remote desktop (not just a specific app) into a Wayland session. I have been using vncviewer to access the primary desktop :0 - I want to share what the user is doing, i.e., the current existing desktop). But with Wayland that only gets me as far as the login. After that, I get a black screen. So if I want to access the desktop remotely, I must, in the login screen, select X11. BTW, I'm really glad I can get that far and make that decision! This and Tk are the only reason I still need X11. All this is on Tumbleweed. Which OBS application works best to access/share an existing remote Wayland desktop (In X parlance :0)? -- Roger Oberholtzer
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 11:10 AM Roger Oberholtzer <roger.oberholtzer@gmail.com> wrote:
Correct. With Wayland you are talking to Wayland compositors. Display manager starts its own compositor to display greeter (kwin, mutter, whatever); when you login, *another* compositor is started as part of the user session. For this to work transparently the connection to the remote viewer needs to be passed from the display manager compositor to the user session compositor. GNOME has implemented it and it should be supported in the recent GNOME (last time I looked Tumbleweed still did not have suitable FreeRDP though, I have not checked since then). KDE still does not support it, I believe someone mentioned this recently on one of the openSUSE lists.
Yes, X11 architecture is different, there is X11 server running outside of any user session and both display manager and user session talk to it. So, it is enough to only snoop on this X11 server. Which may have security implications that Wayland tried to address.
All this is on Tumbleweed. Which OBS application works best to access/share an existing remote Wayland desktop (In X parlance :0)?
To start with - a user cannot have multiple GUI sessions using any of the most popular desktops (including different desktops). It is unrelated to X11 vs Wayland.
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 10:21 AM Andrei Borzenkov <arvidjaar@gmail.com> wrote:
I suspect that one would be disconnected in the transition from the login to the desktop, after logging in (and then probably loosing the connection), I would just need to connect again to the now-running desktop. No idea really.
No problem for me as I don't want multiple desktop sessions. I want just the single one that I can connect to remotely and share with the user. As I do today with X11 and vncviewer. I should point out that this is with KDE. -- Roger Oberholtzer
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 1:12 PM Roger Oberholtzer <roger.oberholtzer@gmail.com> wrote:
That is supported natively by KDE. https://apps.kde.org/krfb/
On 3/17/25 23:53, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
We don't want to export the whole "desktop", just the output from individual applications.
Our usage is simplistic, but effective. And it's kept me employed for decades.
Asked and answered.But here's a simple example. Consider a situation where you have terabytes of large raw data files on a remote server that doesn't have a console. Jane logs in with ssh -X and runs code to visualize some of the data and produces lots of jpg files. Thousands of them. She visualizes some of them with xv. She does this simultaneously with multiple servers with the displays appearing on multiple local virtual desktops.
We use ssh port forwarding for custom Python code, xv, Libreoffice, Firefox, and others, including Yast2. What is Xwayland? Granted, I'm sure we could accommodate multiple RDP-type sessions on multiple local virtual desktops, and that's why I'm asking the question: how must our workflow change to live with Wayland? RDP is how we'd access Windows servers, which is why I mentioned the apparent regression. X11 was always an important Linux differentiator from Windows. Is it a good thing to loose it? Regards, Lew
Am 18.03.25 um 17:35 schrieb Lew Wolfgang:
+1 this is for me the main feature of linux over windoofs. if this will sometimes stop, there is only the "windoofs cost money" reason why using linux. as a user i do not understand why making wayland with less (not nativ) support of the "ssh -X" feature. "something new is often invented, but rarely something better." simoN -- www.becherer.de
On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 09:35:05 -0700 Lew Wolfgang <wolfgang@sweet-haven.com> wrote: What is Xwayland? Look at it's man page, which seems quite helpful. It seems like it might do what you want, if the server is running Wayland and your user is running X. If both ends are using Wayland, then look at waypipe instead.
Am 18.03.25 um 18:52 schrieb Dave Howorth:
At the moment ssh -X worked for me still if wayland is running at this or the other side. so (nearly) nothing to complain. only ssh -X was working across displaymanagers kde gnome etc. but, as andrei borenkov wrote here, this will (also in my opinion) only work as long as major toolkits not stop supporting x11. and, it will be as it is with all tools, (nearly) nobody cares of running old computers. i must work with old systems, or i have to use a lot of money to find somebody who transfer old fantastic working software to new systems (if at all possible because of lack of the source) see at the samba without smb1 support (as standard) to name only one problem who will over time occur. this will happen also with x11 applications, hopefully i will be retired then. my first computer was in 1986. i have used programs in business (later on emulations) up to 2018 written on these machine in 1988 - these are 30 years of the same fine running software. tell me why did we have to throw working stuff away? i have never understood why i need a new text-writing-programm or an update for this, when i was working fine with a text writing program 20 years before. this is business like windoofs, -> we make a new version, then you have to buy new hardware, and then we make an new version, and you have to waste your time and maybe buy new hardware to get all running again, and so on. that was for me the reason to switch to opensource linux. but now-days, it seems for me its the same, always trying to catch the most new stuff. and also on this lists here, if a upstream project not get any "active" maintenance and it get into trouble running on actual opensuse, because of old dependency it will be dropped (of course, if no manpower is there) but for me this indicates, this software was running for years fine, and the environment changes, so its not a fault of "active" maintenance. if a product (software) is "perfect" why did it need maintenance? its working as it is. and yes, i understand that "old" complex software nobody understand (now-days) and sometimes its easier to write it completely new. -> by the way see also discussions at isdn4linux ;-)) -> i am using in-house still isdn connections, why?, because they are working fine, and i do not like to throw tings away if they are working. simoN -- www.becherer.de
18.03.2025 19:35, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
I already answered this in another mail. X11 applications (or any application that can fall back to X11) work as before when you are running Wayland desktop. For pure Wayland on both sides you need to use some helper - exactly as you need for X11. Your use case has nothing to do with alleged "X11 network transparency". Your programs talk to the *local* X11 server; they are not aware that this connection is forwarded over network to somewhere else. So, in your case there is no practical difference between X11 and Wayland. It is possible to forward connection to the *local* X server over network using "ssh -X"; it is possible to forward connection to the *local* Wayland compositor over network using Waypipe on top of SSH. If you want to compare, at least compare apples with apples.
On Tue, 18 Mar 2025 23:51:21 +0300 Andrei Borzenkov <arvidjaar@gmail.com> wrote:
There is no X server on the remote machine! Or at least there does not need to be. The remote machine just runs the X client, and it is connected to the X display server on the local machine. Wayland doesn't have that capability. Whether it matters or not I don't know.
On 2025-03-18 07:35, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
Wayland does not allow you to simply forward a graphical application over SSH as you might with X11’s -X or -Y options.
That's too bad. It is a feature I use sometimes. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.6 x86_64 at Telcontar)
On 2025-03-18 13:16, Andrei Borzenkov wrote:
I can not try, I don't have any wayland running, nor intend to run it. I simply trusted the report. Can't it happen that a machine installs only wayland, and ssh -X/Y doesn't work? I will be happy if ssh -X/Y continues working. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.6 x86_64 at Telcontar)
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 3:58 PM Carlos E. R. <robin.listas@telefonica.net> wrote:
If you intentionally disable Xwayland (not sure if there are any knobs to do it short of removing the package) or use some niche compositor that does not support Xwayland - yes, it won't work. But all mainstream desktop environments integrate Xwayland.
I think that post such as https://jamesnorth.net/post/grd-46-setup With usage of waypipe, ssh -X might be replaced IMO. Cheers, Damian
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 4:17 PM Damian <damianzrb@gmail.com> wrote:
I think that post such as https://jamesnorth.net/post/grd-46-setup With usage of waypipe, ssh -X might be replaced IMO.
To avoid confusion. The same applications that were working over "ssh -X" will continue to work from within the Wayland session due to Xwayland. The native Wayland applications will of course not work, but these applications have never worked over "ssh -X" to start with. So, if you are looking forward to the completely X11-free environment both on the local and remote sides - then yes, you need something like Waypipe. But that will become a problem no sooner than when major toolkits stop supporting X11 altogether.
Am 18.03.25 um 13:57 schrieb Carlos E. R.:
My tumbleweed machines run some on wayland some on x11 because some old proprietary software which has graphical glitches in wayland. i could tell you i ssh -X every day a lot of applications across my network even to some old kvm open?suse 10.x. some applications are installed there, others there, others here.... so it worked like it should and have always done in x11 (kdeplasma) only some scripts i have had to modified, one i remember because of resolution changing will need other tools, so first you have to check what is running wayland or x11 and then use the correct tools. one is some trick to ssh -X inside a script with a password, but did not prompt the password (never understood completely how it works), have had to change also something there, did not remember. - i know can do this with key-pairs, but its something running on the old 10.x open?suse and to that time i setup that machine, i have not used that technique. what absolutely not work is the background led's keyboard of my son, in x11 he can touch a key, and then (only) this key changes colour and the color moves away to the side (over the other keys). nice effect, only fancy stuff, but this will for some security polices in wayland not be possible, as i remember to read somewhere. simoN -- www.becherer.de
On 3/18/25 06:28, Pit Suetterlin via openSUSE Users wrote:
Wait! Let me understand this. We currently use remmina, and RDP for Windows hosts, to connect to our servers running xrdp over unreliable remote connections. The KDE sessions on the remote servers continue to run even if the connection fails. You can subsequently re-connect and find all of your long-winded programs still running. Do we loose persistent remote GUI logins with Wayland? Is it time to dust off nohup? Regards, Lew
participants (9)
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Andrei Borzenkov -
Carlos E. R. -
Damian -
Dave Howorth -
James Knott -
Lew Wolfgang -
Pit Suetterlin -
Roger Oberholtzer -
Simon Becherer