Skip to main content

SSH - running programs with a graphical interface

· 2 min read
Sławomir Cichy
Sławomir Cichy
Backend Engineer @ Sci Software

To run a desktop application with a graphical interface on a server connected via the SSH console, you need to add the -Y or -X argument to the ssh command (see ssh man).

Example command:

ssh -Y user@server

Running applications using sudo and su commands​

It happens that we have permissions and we need to run a given application as another user (on behalf of another user). However, we cannot perform the ssh communication operation to the server as this user, because it is blocked or has other restrictions. But we can perform the sudo or su operation. In this situation, the token obtained using the xauth list command should be copied to the list of tokens of the given user using the xauth add command.

Example for sudo operation:

ssh -Y slawas@localtest-001
[slawas@localtest-001]$ echo $DISPLAY
localhost:10.0
[slawas@localtest-001 ~]$ xauth list
localtest-001/unix:10  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  b70bc7a53f229b6a88e47a01c8d26ce4
[slawas@localtest-001 ~]$ sudo xauth add localtest-001/unix:10  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  b70bc7a53f229b6a88e47a01c8d26ce4
[slawas@localtest-001 ~]$ cd /opt/IBM/install/IM64/
[slawas@localtest-001 IM64]$ sudo ./install
#... works!

Example for su operation:

ssh -Y slawas@localtest-001
[slawas@localtest-001]$ echo $DISPLAY
localhost:10.0
[slawas@localtest-001 ~]$ xauth list
localtest-001/unix:10  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  b70bc7a53f229b6a88e47a01c8d26ce4
[slawas@localtest-001 ~]$ su - bpmadmin
[bpmadmin@localtest-001 ~]$ xauth add localtest-001/unix:10  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  b70bc7a53f229b6a88e47a01c8d26ce4
[bpmadmin@localtest-001 ~]$ cd /opt/IBM/install/IM64/
[bpmadmin@localtest-001 IM64]$ ./install
#... works!

Server configuration​

To be able to implement the task of launching an application with a graphical interface on the server, the appropriate requirements must also be met.

Required packages on the server​

First of all, xauth must be installed. Check if you have the following packages installed and if necessary install them:

  • libaio (library itself, without any connection to any product)
  • gtk2 (GTK+, GIMP Toolkit)
  • libXtst
  • xorg-x11-xauth
  • xorg-x11-fonts-* (optional)
  • xorg-x11-utils (optional)

Example of installing packages for the CentOS operating system:

sudo yum install libaio gtk2 libXtst xorg-x11-xauth xorg-x11-fonts-* xorg-x11-utils

SSH server configuration​

To be able to perform the task of launching an application with a graphical interface on the server, you must configure the SSH server with the appropriate parameters in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file. Verify that you have the parameters set:

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost yes