Starting Windows GUI program in Windows through Cygwin sshd from ssh client

cygwin;sshsshdwindow

I would like to ssh into my Windows box running Cygwin sshd and run the Windows GUI application in that Windows box. I don't want X forwarding.

e.g. From ubuntu-server terminal, I ssh into Windows running sshd and then I launch a notepad.exe. The notepad.exe will display in Windows, not in ubuntu-server without X windows.

Best Answer

The proper method seems to have some issue:

http://cygwin.1069669.n5.nabble.com/Windows-GUI-programs-e-g-notepad-start-but-are-invisible-after-ssh-login-td56256.html

http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2007-10/msg00334.html

Reinstall 'sshd' specifying the '-i' flag to 'cygrunsrv' or edit the current service under "Administrative Tools"->"Services" and check "Allow service to interact with desktop" in the "Log On" tab of the service's "Properties".

So I try some hack. I create a cygwin_screen.cmd and put it in the Windows Startup folder.

@echo off 
C:
chdir C:\cygwin\bin
bash --login -i "/home/username/bin/start_screen.sh"

start_screen.sh is simple and it will make sure that we have the screen to attach to.

#!/bin/bash
screen -dmS "my_screen"

Now I can remote login to Windows from ssh client and attach to that screen when I want to run the Windows GUI application.

$screen -d -r my_screen

$notepad.exe
$cygstart my_doc.doc

Related Solutions

How to run a GUI app from ssh shell

I've read the edited version of the question, and if I understand you correctly, you want to run a program from SSH without showing you the GUI... you just want to run the program and it depends on X Windows, so you need it to connect somehow to X Windows on the server itself.

There are two things you need to do. You need to allow connections from outside of X Windows, and then you need to tell the shell (in SSH) which X server to bind to.

First, allow incoming connections to the X server. Open up a terminal window in X Windows on the server machine. (You must have access to that, otherwise you cannot do this.)

Issue the following command:

xhost +

It should tell you "connections allowed from all hosts" or something to that effect.

Then, while still remaining in X Windows, issue:

echo $DISPLAY

This will tell you the display ID. Write it down or remember it. Typically it will be ":0" or ":0.0" but don't worry if it's different.

That's all you need to do from within X Windows itself.

Now SSH into the server from wherever you want. Issue the command:

export DISPLAY=[what-the-echo-command-gave-you]

And that should be it! Now you should be able to run any X windows from that SSH shell, and it will pop up on the local X Windows server.

Hope it helps!

Linux – Starting a program on the desktop from SSH in Ubuntu

The general way to start a graphical program from a remote machine:

On the target machine run xhost +. (You'll need to do this from a terminal, or from a login script.)
from a remote client, SSH into the target machine and run nohup program & where "program" is the program as you would run it if you were sitting at the target machine.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to run a GUI app from ssh shell

Linux – Starting a program on the desktop from SSH in Ubuntu

Related Question