[H-GEN] Question

[Craig Eldershaw]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

>I want to run a program on a different machine on the x windows of my 
>current machine
>
>now someone did tell me how to do it but I can't remember
>it was something like
>
>progname -display <ip.num.x.server> BUT this doesn't seem to work

Close..., you need "-display <host>:<screen>"

Where <host> is the machine running X (probably the one on your desk)
and <screen> is some magic number.  Unless you are using ssh or doing
something odd (eg. running multiple Xservers on the one machine) then
<screen> will always be 0.  [ObPedant: yes, this isn't accurate or
complete, but it will solve the questioner's problem and now isn't the
time...]

For example, I'm sitting at the machine comet, and I want to bring up an
xterm running on meteor, but being displayed on my machine.

comet:~>telnet meteor
Trying 13.2.18.219...
Connected to meteor.parc.xerox.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

...

meteor:~>xterm -display comet:0 &
[1] 25628

[xterm running on meteor pops up on comet]

meteor:~>logout
Connection closed by foreign host.
comet:~>

Now there is one complication (isn't there always ? :-) which I should
mention: security.  

To start with, the above may not work - the xterm command may fail with
something like "connection to xerver refused".  This means that the
machine in front of you (say comet) has been directed not to allow
access from other machines.  This can be fixed by first running the
command "xhosts +meteor" on comet (ie. before the telnet command).
This explicitely gives permission to meteor (only) to connect to your
xserver on comet.

NB: in an insecure environment, then the above use of xhosts is "not
reccomended" (to put it mildly).  If security is an issue, look into the
(more complicated) details (eg. xauth), *or* use ssh (a secure and easy
way of doing things).

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
	Craig.

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