x2x

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

[cross-posting to GNHLUG, since some of this is relevant there.]

On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 01:19:42PM -0400, Grant M. wrote:
> Derek Martin wrote:
> >I'm surrounded by systems.  Having multiple displays is cool, but          
> >having to use multiple keyboards and mouses to access them is not.  
[SNIP]
> sshd_config:
> # X11 tunneling options

Of course, I'm well familiar with X forwarding over ssh.  This is not
at all what I want to do.

On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 01:25:31PM -0400, David Kramer wrote:
> This doesn't bring up a desktop, though.  You can open up a text window 
> and run X commands, and the output will end up on your display, but you 
> don't get any menus or buttons or anything.

I'm not trying to bring up a desktop, either.  As I said, I'm sitting
in front of several machines.  I want to take advantage of the fact
that I have 4 LCD panels sitting in front of me, and USE all that
screen real estate...  I just don't want to have to use 3 keyboards
and mouses[1] to do it (one of the machines is dual-headed).

x2x allows you to connect to the X server of a remote machine and
control the input (i.e. the keyboard and mouse events) of the remote
machine from the local machine's input devices.  It's way cool.  The
trouble is that the X protocol sends the keyboard and mouse events in
the clear.  That means if you type a password on the local machine,
destined for an input box on the remote machine's display, it travels
over the network unencrypted.  That's bad.  So, I want to run x2x over
an encrypted tunnel.  It can be done with ssh, but figuring out how is
a little brain-twisting.  

Matt B. provided a solution on GNHLUG, but it was one that I had
already tried, and it produced no results for me.  Originally I
thought it might be because iptables rules were getting in the way
(one of my test machines is my firewall, for lack of better options).
But I eliminated that from the picture, and it still didn't work.  It
actually locked up my display, and I had to kill the SSH session to
regain control.  Yucky.

On Thu, Apr 21, 2005 at 01:25:38PM -0400, Gordon Marx wrote:
> Why not just use vnc over ssh?

That also doesn't achieve what I want to do...  But there is another
nifty program called x2vnc which allows you to control a Windows
desktop from the keyboard and mouse of a machine running an X
server, in a similar fashion1[2].  Also very cool.  Also not
encrypted.  Stunnel to the rescue.  It could be done with ssh also, if
you prefer.

In case I haven't been clear about this, NEITHER x2x NOR x2vnc DISPLAY
THE REMOTE DISPLAY, OR ANY PART OF IT,  ON THE LOCAL DISPLAY.  They
simply allow the user to control the remote machine with the local
keyboard and mouse, which generally assumes that you can see the
physical display of the remote machine.  It's kinda like a kvm without
the 'v' part, except that you can control all of the machines at the
same time, by simply scrolling the mouse off the side of the display
you're currently controlling.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[1] This is a Derek-ism.  Mice live in fields, mouses are input
devices for computers.  =8^)

[2] [The X server can theoretically also be on a windows system, but
if so it's better to just run RealVNC 4 on both machines, which has
support for strong encryption.]  

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
-=-=-=-=-
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