ERROR: Cannot open X display

[Luis G. Rivera]

Thank you for your response.  Now, the question is what are the exact steps (if there are any) to actually get this to work?

Luis G. Rivera
Senior Tech Support Specialist   
Computer Services Help Desk


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:02:18 -0600
>From: René Berber <r.berber@computer.org>  
>Subject: Re: ERROR: Cannot open X display  
>To: cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com
>
>Luis G. Rivera wrote:
>
>> I have used Cygwin/X on two computer in my office and it works
>> with no problems.  There are several users who cannot use the
>> softwared.  One in particular gets the following error messages:
>> 
>> ERROR: Cannot open X display.  Check display name/server
>> access authorization.
>[snip]
>> 
>> This is the steps that I use in my office to run Cygwin/X:
>> 
>> 1.	Execute “startxwin.bat”.
>> 2.	On the window that opens I type: xhost +
>> hostname.temple.edu.  Then I type: ssh –X
>> userid@hostname.temple.edu.  
>> 3.	I type my password and get in with no problem.  Then I
>> type: setenv DISPLAY myipaddress:0.0.
>
>This is wrong, if you used "ssh -X" then DISPLAY is already set (by ssh) and it
>has a different value, usually localhost:10.0 for the first connection.
>
>The idea is that ssh will tunnel the X connection through itself (thus
>localhost) and it uses a configurable display number (the 10.0).
>
>The reason it works from some computers and not from others is that even if the
>X server exists at myipaddress:0.0 it could be blocked by any firewall between
>computers; the ssh tunnel is the way to avoid being blocked.
>
>[snip]
>-- 
>René Berber
>
>
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