While there is generally no need for a graphical user interface (GUI) on a server, some system administrators have encountered cases where a GUI is needed. Most often, people use VNC to access the graphical user interface of the server which, given a dangerous environment such as the Internet, brings several security risks with it. A more secure way to remotely access X11 applications is by using the “X11 forwarding” feature of SSH. This tutorial will show you how to enable it on a server running Debian Wheezy.<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: X11 forwarding works with Windows and OS X hosts too, although that setup requires some additional work (especially with Windows). For this tutorial, we assume Linux.<\/p>\n

First, you need X11 to be present on the server (gvim<\/code>\u00a0is just an application for testing purposes here, you can basically install and use every application you want):<\/p>\n

apt-get install xorg vim-gtk\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Open\u00a0\/etc\/ssh\/sshd_config<\/code>\u00a0with your favorite text editor and edit the following line:<\/p>\n
X11Forwarding no\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
And add the following lines:<\/p>\n
Match User yourusername\r\n    X11Forwarding yes\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
And restart the SSH daemon:<\/p>\n
service sshd restart\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
Ensure that your firewall is configured to allow SSH-connections\u00a0as well as<\/strong>\u00a0connections to the loopback-interface. A lot of problems with X11 forwarding stem from blocked connections to the loopback-interface.<\/p>\n
Now you can connect from your client as usual, only that now you add the\u00a0-X<\/strong>\u00a0parameter to enable X11 forwarding:<\/p>\n
ssh -X yourusername@yourserver.tld\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
To take\u00a0gvim<\/code>\u00a0as example, simply enter:<\/p>\n
gvim\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n
into the shell. After a delay of about two seconds, a window will open. You are now securely accessing graphical applications over the Internet!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","manualknowledgebasecat":[233,242],"manual_kb_tag":[412],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manual_kb\/2737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manual_kb"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/manual_kb"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manual_kb\/2737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2738,"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manual_kb\/2737\/revisions\/2738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"manualknowledgebasecat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manualknowledgebasecat?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"manual_kb_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.aklwebhost.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/manual_kb_tag?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}