Putty+Xming=Reflection

Reflection, a very good terminal emulation and X server, are widely used. But you have to pay for it since it is a COMMERCIAL software. On the other hand, Putty is a wonderful terminal emulation. But some people complain that they can not run GUI program within the terminal window provided by Putty but Reflection can. The reason is Putty is just a terminal emulation not an X server. The only thing you need is an X server.

Xming is an open source software which provides X server on Windows platform. Xming plus putty can let you run any GUI program from Putty‘s terminal window.

First, you need to download Xming and install it. After that you can use xlaunch to generate Xming configuration files (must end with .xlaunch).

Once you start Xming X server on your PC, you can use Putty to connect to the *nix machine and set DISPLAY environment variable, the format is DISPLAY=your-ip:0.

Congratulation! you have done all the stuff.

To verify it just type xclock on terminal window and press enter. You should see a graphic clock displayed on Xming window.

Q&A ¶

Q:Why dose the *nix system prompt me ‘No protocol specified‘ after executing ‘xclock‘?
A:Check Xming‘s log, it should tell you that Xming has refused a connection coming from certain *nix machine. There are two ways to solve it:
1. When creating Xming configuration, check ‘No Access Control‘. That way Xming will accept connection coming from any machine.
2. Download Xming tool package and run ‘xhost‘ command when Xming is running.

xhost + ipaddress-or-name
This command will allow the specified machine to connect the Xming.

Other consideration ¶

X clients running on the *nix machine use X11 protocol to communicate with X server. A secure way is to let an SSH client forward all X11 protocol messages. Such an SSH client could be Putty or Secure shell. Using Putty you need to create a profile which is used to connect the *nix box. On the tab of Connection|SSH|X11 of that profile, check nable X11 forwarding and input localhost:0 as X display