Tunneling Desktop Environments via SSH

Xorovo "Shared Knowledge" Program

Sometimes working with SSH using the terminal isn't enough. These times SSH could be used to tunnel a graphical interface from the remote machine to the one we are using.

Requires:

Server machine: Linux, Gnome OR KDE OR any other desktop environment running on a X server

Client machine: any X-server-powered OS (Linux works with X by default, but also Windows machines could be equipped with some sort of X server), SSH client installed

Procedure: Starting simple graphical applications

First of all start the console and type:
ssh -X username@remotehostname -p port

providing the right username, remote host name (or remote host IP) and the right port.

After providing the password you are logged in the remote machine.
You can start any application of the remote machine, e.g. you can do:
gedit &

and Gedit will be started on the remote host and displayed on our X server.

Procedure: Starting a desktop environment

First of all start the console and type:
whereis xterm

Remind the path returned by the command and type:
xinit path/to/xterm -- :1

This command opens a new X session (on the display "1").
This session contains an xterm terminal.

In the xterm terminal type:
ssh -X username@remotehostname -p port

providing the right username, remote host name (or remote host IP) and the right port.

After providing the password you are logged in the remote machine.
You can start any application of the remote machine, but the useful thing is you can also start an entire desktop environment:

gnome-session (if you want to start Gnome)
startkde (if you want to start KDE)
startxfce4 (if you want to start XFCE4)