Is there a way to start an X session remotely?

juniper · l33t Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 942 Location: we the north

I have a login manager running. The machine is remotely located and I want to start an X session as if I logged into the login manager while sitting in front of the computer.

can I do that?

LoTeK · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 270

do you mean you sit in front of machine A and you are logged in with ssh in machine B and then you want to start an X-server that is displayed on machine A?

if yes I think you can do it with Xdmx and I want to do the same, but I haven't had any success. Until now I'm only able to start an X-session on machine A that is displayed on machine B

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"I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language!"

juniper · l33t Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 942 Location: we the north

LoTeK · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 270

ok, but thats easy isn't it?

obviously you have to connect the two machines somehow, so you are in front of machine A, then you ssh to machine B then you type startx (I guess with a login manager its similar). then there is an X-server on machine B and if you go to machine B you are logged in on F7.

That's what I do every day (laptop is machine A and my desktop machine B)
_________________
"I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language!"

juniper · l33t Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 942 Location: we the north

so i should stop the dm? I forget how to use startx to start in a specific user.

I guess there is no way to do this without taking down the dm?

LoTeK · Apprentice Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 270

Since I only boot to runlevel 3 and then use startx I don't have any experience with login managers, but when you boot to runlevel 5 and login machine A with any user, then you have an X-server running on machine A, then you can launch a terminal emulator and from there you ssh into machine B, then you type startx to start the X-server on machine B.

So you don't need to stop the dm (on machine A). I guess if you don't want to do it with startx, you can configure a login manager on machine B too, but I don't know how.

(if you type startx you are already logged in with a specific user, because you do ssh user@machineB, so if you want to login with a different user when you come to machine B then you have maybe have to restart the dm if I'm correct and if I understand you correctly)
_________________
"I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language!"