Configure X11 Forwarding with PuTTY and Xming

Dushmantha Charaka January 02, 2019 0 Comments

Configure-X11-Forwarding-PuTTY-to-Xming-on-Windows

Usually, Graphical mode is turned off in Linux servers due to Security and Resource optimization. In such environments running a GUI application is not a trivial task. However, we can use PuTTY and XMing to forward X11 display to a windows client over SSH protocol.

In this article, we will first install required packages on our Linux Server, then we will configure XMing and PuTTY for X11 forwarding on Windows.

This Article Provides:

System Specification:

One Microsoft Windows client and a Linux server.

Required Software:

Download and Install following two software on Windows client.

- PuTTY
- XMing X Server for Windows

Install required packages on Linux server:

Connect to Linux machine and install necessary packages for X11 forwarding.

[root@junit-01 ~]# yum install -y xauth
...
Installed:
  xorg-x11-xauth.x86_64 1:1.0.9-1.el7

Dependency Installed:
  libXmu.x86_64 0:1.1.2-2.el7             libXt.x86_64 0:1.1.5-3.el7

Complete!

We will require a Linux GUI application to test X11 forwarding configurations. Therefore, we are installing xclock to test the configuration.

[root@junit-01 ~]# yum install -y xclock
...
Installed:
  xorg-x11-apps.x86_64 0:7.7-7.el7

Dependency Installed:
  libXaw.x86_64 0:1.0.13-4.el7           libXcursor.x86_64 0:1.1.15-1.el7
  libXfixes.x86_64 0:5.0.3-1.el7         libXft.x86_64 0:2.3.2-2.el7
  libXpm.x86_64 0:3.5.12-1.el7           libXxf86vm.x86_64 0:1.1.4-1.el7
  libxkbfile.x86_64 0:1.0.9-3.el7

Complete!

Configure XMing:

After installing Xming on Windows run xlaunch application.

Default configuration will work for us. Therefore, click on Next.

Click on Next.

Click on Finish.

XMing application has been started and it is placed in System Tray of Windows.

Configure PuTTY:

Once installed, run PuTTY application.

Add a session of our Linux machine therein.

Besides other configuration, we are also required to configure X11 forwarding as follows:

Save and open the session.

login as: root
Authenticating with public key "rsa-key-20190101"
Last login: Tue Jan  1 21:16:23 2019 from 192.168.116.1
/usr/bin/xauth:  file /root/.Xauthority does not exist
[root@junit-01 ~]# xclock

Xming will capture the Display open a window to run xclock application.