[gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[Grant]

I just enabled X-forwarding and I've got a few questions for you guys.

Should I have any security concerns about doing this?

It looks like gimp comes through with an older/blockier version of gtk
or something.  Any way to fix that?

I'm starting X-forwarding like 'ssh -XC 192.168.100.1 gimp' and when I
close gimp it looks like the terminal is still running the process.
Is it supposed to come back to the prompt?

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[pk]

Grant wrote:
> I just enabled X-forwarding and I've got a few questions for you guys.
> 
> Should I have any security concerns about doing this?

Not more than usual. I assume your online computers have been secured
(to a reasonable degree)... Of course if anyone has access to your
remote machine (that you run X apps on) they could theoretically
"listen" in on your X session (man xauth for details).

> It looks like gimp comes through with an older/blockier version of gtk
> or something.  Any way to fix that?

Well, gimp is using local resources on the machine you run it on. So
it's using whatever version of gtk that is installed on your remote
machine. Is it the fonts that are "blocky"? If so it may be an DPI issue ...

> I'm starting X-forwarding like 'ssh -XC 192.168.100.1 gimp' and when I
> close gimp it looks like the terminal is still running the process.
> Is it supposed to come back to the prompt?

Hm... yes, if you are starting gimp that way it may be that ssh doesn't
recognise that gimp is closed so it maintains the connection. Have you
tried to log in with ssh -X and run it from there instead? Btw, the -C
option is unnecessary unless you are using a very slow connection.

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[Grant]

>> I just enabled X-forwarding and I've got a few questions for you guys.
>>
>> Should I have any security concerns about doing this?
>
> Not more than usual. I assume your online computers have been secured
> (to a reasonable degree)... Of course if anyone has access to your
> remote machine (that you run X apps on) they could theoretically
> "listen" in on your X session (man xauth for details).

Alright, I won't leave remote gimp open all day then.

>> It looks like gimp comes through with an older/blockier version of gtk
>> or something.  Any way to fix that?
>
> Well, gimp is using local resources on the machine you run it on. So
> it's using whatever version of gtk that is installed on your remote
> machine. Is it the fonts that are "blocky"? If so it may be an DPI issue ...

That's the weird part.  Local gimp and remote gimp side-by-side on the
same screen look different.  For example, the edges of the buttons and
widgets in local gimp are rounded but they aren't in remote gimp.  Not
a big deal though.

>> I'm starting X-forwarding like 'ssh -XC 192.168.100.1 gimp' and when I
>> close gimp it looks like the terminal is still running the process.
>> Is it supposed to come back to the prompt?
>
> Hm... yes, if you are starting gimp that way it may be that ssh doesn't
> recognise that gimp is closed so it maintains the connection. Have you
> tried to log in with ssh -X and run it from there instead?

When I ssh -X, start gimp, close gimp, and close the ssh session, the
terminal prompt disappears and only the cursor is visible in the
terminal.  I have to ctrl+c to bring the prompt back.  This doesn't
happen with ssh -X unless I open gimp during the session.

> Btw, the -C option is unnecessary unless you are using a very slow connection.

Using -C, gimp is about 10x more responsive than if I don't.  I was
surprised too.  My laptop and the "remote" system are 15 feet away
from each other on the same wireless network, with the router in
between.

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[pk]

Grant wrote:

> That's the weird part.  Local gimp and remote gimp side-by-side on the
> same screen look different.  For example, the edges of the buttons and
> widgets in local gimp are rounded but they aren't in remote gimp.  Not
> a big deal though.

So what do gimp look like when you run it locally on the "remote"
machine (i.e. not using ssh)?

> When I ssh -X, start gimp, close gimp, and close the ssh session, the
> terminal prompt disappears and only the cursor is visible in the
> terminal.  I have to ctrl+c to bring the prompt back.  This doesn't
> happen with ssh -X unless I open gimp during the session.

So this only happens with gimp? It may be that gimp doesn't exit
"properly"... I'm just guessing and I don't know why that would be.

> Using -C, gimp is about 10x more responsive than if I don't.  I was
> surprised too.  My laptop and the "remote" system are 15 feet away
> from each other on the same wireless network, with the router in
> between.

Ah, well... can't argue with that. :-)

Best regards

Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[Mark Knecht]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> When I ssh -X, start gimp, close gimp, and close the ssh session, the
> terminal prompt disappears and only the cursor is visible in the
> terminal.  I have to ctrl+c to bring the prompt back.  This doesn't
> happen with ssh -X unless I open gimp during the session.
>

I see this sometimes with ssh even when I don't run an X app remotely.
I think it's an ssh thing and my guess is that it's local, not remote.
If I don't hit control C, go to another machine and shell into the
same remote machine my login on that end from the first machine is
gone.

>> Btw, the -C option is unnecessary unless you are using a very slow connection.
>
> Using -C, gimp is about 10x more responsive than if I don't.  I was
> surprised too.  My laptop and the "remote" system are 15 feet away
> from each other on the same wireless network, with the router in
> between.
>

I agree. Going across the net I find -C  to be quite helpful running
something like Firefox.

Note that since I manage the machine at the other end I actually use

ssh -X -Y -C -c blowfish

The -Y seems to let a few more things work. Not a big deal but it's
the way I do it.

I think -c blowfish may be the default but I type is anyway.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[Grant]

>> That's the weird part.  Local gimp and remote gimp side-by-side on the
>> same screen look different.  For example, the edges of the buttons and
>> widgets in local gimp are rounded but they aren't in remote gimp.  Not
>> a big deal though.
>
> So what do gimp look like when you run it locally on the "remote"
> machine (i.e. not using ssh)?

gimp run without ssh on the remote machine looks just like gimp run on
the local machine.  It only looks funny over ssh.

- Grant


>> When I ssh -X, start gimp, close gimp, and close the ssh session, the
>> terminal prompt disappears and only the cursor is visible in the
>> terminal.  I have to ctrl+c to bring the prompt back.  This doesn't
>> happen with ssh -X unless I open gimp during the session.
>
> So this only happens with gimp? It may be that gimp doesn't exit
> "properly"... I'm just guessing and I don't know why that would be.
>
>> Using -C, gimp is about 10x more responsive than if I don't.  I was
>> surprised too.  My laptop and the "remote" system are 15 feet away
>> from each other on the same wireless network, with the router in
>> between.
>
> Ah, well... can't argue with that. :-)
>
> Best regards
>
> Peter K

Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[Daniel Troeder]

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Am Dienstag, den 27.01.2009, 14:25 -0800 schrieb Grant:
> Using -C, gimp is about 10x more responsive than if I don't.  I was
> surprised too.  My laptop and the "remote" system are 15 feet away
> from each other on the same wireless network, with the router in
> between.
Most X programs store their bitmaps in the X server - not the program.
You can see this if you look at the memory usage. So lots of data is
transfered if using gimp :)

BTW: If you can use cable instead of wireless, you may have a _much_
better experience, because of the latency that wireless adds.

BTW2: If your bandwidth is really small, you should use VNC instead of
ssh-X - though that's not to nice with image editing :)

Bye,
Daniel

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Re: [gentoo-user] X-forwarding questions

[Paul Hartman]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Daniel Troeder <daniel@admin-box.com> wrote:
> Am Dienstag, den 27.01.2009, 14:25 -0800 schrieb Grant:
>> Using -C, gimp is about 10x more responsive than if I don't.  I was
>> surprised too.  My laptop and the "remote" system are 15 feet away
>> from each other on the same wireless network, with the router in
>> between.
> Most X programs store their bitmaps in the X server - not the program.
> You can see this if you look at the memory usage. So lots of data is
> transfered if using gimp :)
>
> BTW: If you can use cable instead of wireless, you may have a _much_
> better experience, because of the latency that wireless adds.
>
> BTW2: If your bandwidth is really small, you should use VNC instead of
> ssh-X - though that's not to nice with image editing :)

NX is the king... it's about a million times faster than VNC or ssh X
forwarding (or windows RDP).

net-misc/nxserver-freeedition is at the top of my "must have" list.
viewing full-screen images or working with gimp probably won't be a
treat no matter what, but it'd probably be many orders of magnitude
faster than ssh forwarding.