

Start a PuTTy session with SSH tunneling enabled and login to your Unix account. Xming will appear in your system tray (lower right with clock) as a black X with an orange circle around the middle Start the X Server on your PC - Xming, that is - either each time you reboot your PC or whenever you want to use X Windows: PuTTy will forward your X information from each host when you establish a connection. Xming will simply provide an X-server in much the same manner as a standard Unix workstation. Starting an X Windows session with SSH X11 TunnelingĪll connections are initiated through PuTTy. "Enable X11 Forwarding" should be checked, and the X Display Location box should be set to "localhost:0". This is set in the PuTTY config panel under connection -> ssh -> tunnels. The only configuration item is the flag that tells PuTTY to forward X connections. PuTTY should be preconfigured to work in conjunction with Xming.

This additional installer provides standard core X fonts (which are usually required) and optional extended Bitstream Vera replacement fonts from DejaVue If you will be doing anything specail with fonts, please install Xming-fonts from the same box. On their webiste, under Releases, Public Domain Releases, please install Xming, which would be the latest version. Xming is free software that can be downloaded from XMing's website. NOTE: While it is possible to use X-windows without a secure product like PuTTY, this is no longer allowed at the JLab due to security concerns. PuTTY and Xming are designed to work together so that X applications you launch from within the PuTTY login windows will use the encrypted channel created by PuTTY to secure the network traffic used by the x server against sniffing. Thus, it should already be available on your system. PuTTY is the same tool used to provide all interactive login from Windows to Unix systems at the Lab.

We recoommend PuTTY, which must be installed on your PC and configured correctly to provide secure X-Windows connections.

Since X-windows does not provide secure connections itself, it is necessary to use it in conjunction with a separate tool that provides this security. The Computing and Networking Infrastructure (CNI) group currently recommends a free X server software, Xming. Since Windows does not support X11 based windowing natively, it is necessary to run a special program called an "X Server" that allows your Windows desktop to do so. It creates a hardware abstraction layer where software is written to use a generalized set of commands, allowing for device independence and reuse of programs on any computer that implements X. The X Window System (commonly X or X11) is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for networked computers.
