This is primarily for my own record and knowledge. If it helps you, great! If it breaks something, don't say I didn't warn you - this is just documentation of what I did to get this to work at the time I wrote this on one particular machine.
- I have a 64-bit cygwin install in
c:\cygwin64(possible in 32-bit too, I just messed up that install and it no longer works, so these were tested on my machine in a 64-bit install). I use my Cygwin setup scripts to simplify this part. - I'm using VirtualBox on Windows 8.1.
- Importantly (at least for VirtualBox), I added a "host-only networking" adapter for communication between the guest (VM) and host machine - this seems to be required.
- Totally optional but useful part of my setup: I'm using VBoxHeadlessTray to be able to easily have my virtual machine running without taking up precious taskbar space, so I only rarely actually use the VM direct (vs. over SSH). This might or might not explain some of my choices, but I figured I'd mention it, if nothing else than because that's a slick tool. I think once you install SSH in the VM and have the networking interfaces right, you could run it entirely with this app (vs. the full VirtualBox GUI).
- Presumably the same basic approach below works with other VM software, as long as you can ssh into your VM and your VM can access TCP ports on your host.
- My VM is running a Debian Jessie install
- I'd expect any Linux with X clients and an SSH server to work.
- In Cygwin, install :
- the X-related things. I think if you install
startxorxinitit will pull in everything else needed. You may also opt for the "start menu shortcuts" package - though you won't usually use those, they're handy for testing. - ssh client
- the X-related things. I think if you install
- Run the Cygwin X server from the start menu once to see that it does work for you before we do crazy stuff.
- It can be handy to set your user-profile-wide
DISPLAYenvironment variable to:0.0if you'll want to be able to launch X apps from a normal cygwin shell (that is, not an xterm) - Create a shortcut with the target
C:\cygwin64\bin\run.exe --quote /usr/bin/bash.exe -l -c "/usr/bin/XWin :0 -listen tcp -multiwindow -clipboard -wgl -ac"("start in:"C:\cygwin64) - This will launch a suitable X server. Argument explanation:- listen on TCP, which is how the VM will get to us (this didn't used to be required, default must have changed)
- built-in multi-window mode
- clipboard integration
- OpenGL support
- Disable access control (xhost)
- Alternately if you're sick of seeing warnings about auth failures, etc. you can actually use
startxwin, just takes a little more finagling.- Your shortcut now would be to
C:\cygwin64\bin\run.exe --quote /usr/bin/bash.exe -l -c "/usr/bin/startxwin -- :0 -listen tcp -multiwindow -clipboard -wgl -ac" - To avoid starting a bunch of junk along with your xserver, you'll need to create/edit a
.startxwinrcfile in your Cygwin home directory:- You could start from the system one's (
/etc/X11/xinit/startxwinrc) fallback section, and comment out thextermandfbpanellines, or you could start with a blank file. - Either way, you need to end the file with
exec sleep inf- long story short, whenstartxwinrcexits, the X server shuts down, and so this as your last command means it never exits.
- You could start from the system one's (
- Your shortcut now would be to
- I like the
terminatorterminal emulator - install it or your preferred. - You'll need to be able to SSH in.
- On your VM it is helpful to add an entry to
/etc/hostsfor the "host-only network" IP of your host machine, with the hostnamehost. (Similarly, on the host machine, it can be handy to add a hosts-file entry for the guest - here, calledjessie- you get one guess why) - On your VM, for bonus points, put
export DISPLAY=host:0.0in some profile script - not strictly necessary, but makes it simpler if you ssh into your vm directly or use the vm's console directly.
- Just ssh in to your VM: you can use the SSH in Git or Cygwin, both work - but we'll be using Cygwin later, so probably use that. You might have to
export DISPLAY=:0.0first. Pass-Xto the ssh command for X-forwarding, then launch some X app on the VM. This should work easy-peasy - it should have worked even without the advanced tinkering, so this is just a smoketest of your X server. - Now, ssh in to your VM without forwarding X. If it's not in your profile (hint: try
echo $DISPLAY), you may need toexport DISPLAY=host:0.0, then try running an X app. If this doesn't work, either X access control is screwed up, your host-only network is screwed up, or there's a firewall getting in the way. - Now, try the "canned command" from the host that we'll be scripting later:
ssh ryan@jessie 'env DISPLAY=host:0.0 terminator'- If you haven't already, you probably want to use
ssh-keygenandssh-copy-idat this point to get passwordless login to your VM over SSH.
- If you haven't already, you probably want to use
All these have their "start in" directory as c:\cygwin64 but I'm not sure it matters.
- Open Terminator on Jessie:
C:\cygwin64\bin\run.exe --quote /usr/bin/bash.exe -l -c "ssh ryan@jessie 'env DISPLAY=host:0.0 terminator'"- You can use this to start other X apps.
Some new-fangled GTK+3 apps (like Gedit) end up being unresizable with these default settings on Windows. Lacking a better solution at the moment, in Cygwin, cp /etc/X11/system.XWinrc ~/.XWinrc if you don't already have one in your user account - this sets up special windows-specific X stuff. You can add to the nearly-bottom (right after the menus) something like this:
styles {
gedit NOTITLE
}
with as many of those middle lines as needed. The first parameter is the window name or class, which you can find by running xprop (you can get it in cygwin) and clicking the window in question. Then, once you restart the X server (or reload .XWinrc - not sure if that works if you are creating a user-specific one for the first time), any new windows meeting the criteria will get an extra border for resizability. Not perfect, and clearly a hack, but it makes gedit usable so I'm OK with it for now.
Thank you for this!