Karel De Vriendt wrote:
I have two SuSE machines (and a couple of Windows machines).
One of the SuSE machines is connection to my network but has no keyboard and monitor attached to it. I want to use it as a fileserver (Samba) and will do the administration from my second SuSE machine.
I can open a connection to the rempote machine (remote) via
ssh -X login@remote
"ssh -X remote" and you will get a login prompt.
And then I startup a graphical session in which I will do all my work via
Xnest -name "remote" -query remote :1 & export DISPLAY=remote:1
X :2 -query remote vt09& ### the vt09 is not strictly necessary, but helps if you have multiple machines. You get a graphical login prompt on that VT and you can switch between machines in the usual way ALT-F7, ALT-F9 etc. CTRL-ALT-BKSP then terminates the session (it used to, I think I saw how to enable it in a config file somewhere). For the command above I get "cannot open display", but with the command shown here I have a graphical login on vt09 for the remote machine.
And this works fine. I am not an expert, nor in ssh, nor in X but after reading through a number of postings on the web, that is how I got things to work.
Some questions:
- Closing the graphical session (via closing the window, I do not know another method) seems not always to stop the Xserver started with Xnest. Rebooting fileserver cures things but there must be a better way.
- The graphical session (connected to an Xserver session on remote) uses a standard (US) keyboard but both SuSE machines have been configured to work with a Belgian (azerty) keyboard. How do I indicate that I want to use a Belgian keyboard (extra parameter with Xnest command?).
- Some postings on the Internet say that all this DISPLAY stuff is not needed (and is even dangerous as this would make the connection not to use the secure ssh tunnel). But without, nothing works.
All good advise would be welcome.
Karel De Vriendt
-- Sid Boyce .... Hamradio G3VBV and keen Flyer Linux Only Shop.