[LUGSB] SSH Help?

[Ilya Sukhanov (dotCOMmie)]

Tam Nguyen wrote:
> I don't understand why I would need an X server on the windows side, because
> I'm running the applications on Ubuntu's side, just controlling them from
> the windows machine. And inside the */etc/ssh/sshd_config file, I've got the
> X11Forwarding option set to 'yes'*

X is a little bit confusing and might sound backwards to beginners. The server
on X is where the data is actually rendered and the clients are the application
which request things to be drawn. In your case the client is Amarok. Since the
rendering will be done on you windows box you have to have an X server installed
there. If your remote machine was linux based and not windows it would already 
have an X server installed and none of this would be a problem.

For more info about X window check out the wikipedia entry [1] it has some 
interesting info.

> ...

> I've taken the iniative to look around for music players that don't require
> an GUI...

I regularly use a console based music player called moc [2] (mocp is the 
excutable). Its not as feature-full as amarok but it does work for most 
scenarios. Its also written to be able to run in the background so you don't 
even need to run screen [3] to manage it. I can't say that its the right 
solution for your problem (and neither is amarok) but it is very useful, check 
it out.

For the proper solution you should look into client-server or web-based
solutions as has been suggested already.

> But the real reason I wanted to do this was because I felt this simple set
> up would be a good excercise in using ssh.
 >
 > I still don't understand the X
 > server requirement. Shouldn't that X11Forwarding option cover that?

While the exercise is useful, you must remember that SSH has nothing to do with
X. Your exercise is in X, it uses sockets to communicate between Server and
Client and it does care whether this is over TCP, local-sockets or even SSH.

If you want to learn more about SSH I would be happy to give a talk on it. But 
that would be of limited use as your problems are in X. Unfortunately I don't 
know about X to explain all the gritty details of it, Although Adam Martin did 
give an awesome talk on X window two years ago. Maybe you guys should invite him 
back?

> I was following the tutorial on the ubuntu wiki (
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SSHHowto), and it didn't mention anything
> about X servers except for nested windows, or something.

The tutorial assumes you are already running a X server and if you have a linux
desktop that is not such a horrible assumption.

If you are still confused feel free to ask for clarification.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_window#Design
[2] http://moc.daper.net/
[3] http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnu_screen


PS. While writing this email my X server crashed. I cant remember when the last 
time that happened? Coincidence? Or does X have some mechanism to detect that it 
is being talked about?