However, you can use any other X-Client tool (XManager, Exceed, X-Ming, WRQ etc).
Step 3 – Adjust Linux SSH configuration.
The Linux SSH configuration may not be setup to enable X11 forwarding.
This is usually performed by the Linux administrator at a global level in the ssh daemon configuration file.
However, it is possible to adjust the config for individual users only.
As your Linux user (in an SAP system this would usually be the <sid>adm user account), enable the X-11 forwarding:
echo “ForwardX11 yes” > $HOME/.ssh/config
The above command simply enables the current user to forward X11 connections over the SSH connection.
It puts this config into a file called “config” within the .ssh directory of the current Linux user’s home directory.
Step 4 – Setup the port forwarding.
Since this tutorial is going to show the setup of X11 dynamically, with an already established SSH connection, from within your already established PuTTY session, select the Windows window menu from the top left of the PuTTY window and select “Change Settings…“:
Expand the “Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels” settings area on the left hand tree menu:
(Notice there is no option to enable or disable the usual X-11 forwarding option)
On the right hand side, now add port 6000 as source and loclahost:6000 as destination, then select “Remote” and click “Add“:
Click Apply:
What is the above doing?
It is telling PuTTY to establish a listening port on the Linux server, listening on port 6000 (the port for display “0.0”).
The port is “remote” because it is remote to the PuTTY session (i.e. not on the computer where you are running PuTTY).
We’re telling PuTTY to only consider IPv4 because we don’t use IPv6 and have no interest in having it listen for an IPv6 connection.
The above setup will have now established a port forward over the SSH port.
If you were to run “netstat -an | grep 6000” on the Linux server, you would see one port in status LISTEN.
Now the port forwarding is established, all we need to do is configure our Linux session to make use of the display setting.
Step 5 – Configure DISPLAY
In your Linux session, set the DISPLAY variable appropriately.
In a C-shell you would use:
> setenv DISPLAY localhost:0.0
In a Bash, Bourne or Korn shell you would use:
$ export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
From within the Linux session you should now be able to run an X11 application and see the window on your PC/virtual server.
You can use the standard “xeyes” or “xclock” to perform the test, however sometimes on Linux installs these do not get installed.
I’ve found that it’s generally possible to call “firefox” or “totem” to perform an X11 test.
Alternatively, just call your intended SAP X11 application as discussed at the beginning.
That’s it.
