Setting Up X11 Forwarding (Windows)

Setting up X11-Forwarding on a Windows machine requires three steps: installing and running an X server, setting a Windows environment variable, and connecting to Monsoon. The first two steps mentioned only need to be performed once as they set up your machine.

Installing an X Server

SSH alone cannot convert a Linux windowing system over to Windows, so we will need a program to do that for us.

An X server that has been tested to work with Monsoon is Xming. You can download the program from their website or by using the following winget command:

winget install Xming.Xming

Once you have Xming installed, search for Xming in the Start Menu and run it. The process will run in the background and will show a system tray icon.

Note: Xming does not start with your system automatically. You will need to start Xming each time you start your computer to use X11 forwarding.

Setting Necessary Environment Variables

Next, we need to tell SSH where to stream the window contents. In Windows, all you have to do is set an environment variable. In a terminal, enter the following command to set the DISPLAY environment variable:

setx DISPLAY localhost:0

This variable is set within Windows for only your user, but won’t be loaded until your terminal is reopened. To continue, you MUST restart your terminal.

Connecting to Monsoon with X11 Forwarding

Once the previous steps above are complete, there’s only one step left: connecting to Monsoon! This is as simple as running the following command in a terminal:

ssh -Y [UID]@monsoon.hpc.nau.edu

Note: If you are a classroom Monsoon user, you MUST replace monsoon with rain.

From here, it will appear to be a regular SSH session because we haven’t started any graphical applications yet. The simplest way to test if the connection worked is by running the xeyes application:

$ xeyes

If the xeyes program was able to successfully launch, then you are done setting up X11 forwarding on Windows.

Troubleshooting

X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication

This error occurs when the file ~/.Xauthority cannot be created. Check to see if you have reached your quota limit with the getquotas command.