starting X app over ssh

fftry · 08-01-2007, 09:34 AM

I have and access control application that runs on a pc. I would like to be able to restart the app from ssh on another computer. The application runs on X. I can kill the app fine from a remote ssh shell but how would I start it again?

For clarification:

accontrol: Computer that runs access control app in X11.
pc: Computer I use to login to accontrol via ssh.

I login to accontrol from pc and kill the app. I then want to restart the app. I would think I have to tell it to run the program somehow on tty1, not pts/0 or whatever my ssh login is. Just don't know how. Any ideas? X11 forwarding can't work since I don't want to run the application on pc.

Thanks,
gg

ramram29 · 08-01-2007, 09:39 AM

You can direct the app to run on the display of the computer where it is coming from, hence DISPLAY:0.0. I'm not sure exactly, but I think you can change the environment variable DISPLAY variable to point to the ip:0.0 display of the machine. For example, connect via ssh then run 'export DISPLAY=192.168.0.1:0.0' the ip address is the one belonging to the machine running X. Then run the command. I may be wrong but I think you can redirect commands to remote displays. Google it.

Agrouf · 08-01-2007, 09:54 AM

Actually the app is on local machine (accontrol).

Code:

ssh accontrol
DISPLAY=localhost:0 control_app_command

fftry · 08-01-2007, 10:45 AM

That does launch the app on the remote display. But the process is still spawned on the pts/0 tty. So when I close the ssh connection that process is killed. How can I get the proccess to remain even when I close the ssh connection?

ramram29 · 08-01-2007, 11:57 AM

You may want to try running it in the background. For example, 'program &' then exit. Or use 'screen' then press Ctrl-d to exit then Ctrl-r to resume later on.

fftry · 08-01-2007, 12:58 PM

The "&" at the end of the command does not work since it is still bound to the tty and closes on disconnect, but screen did work. Thanks for the help. Case closed!!

jlarsen · 08-01-2007, 03:28 PM

I've been able to get programs to continue to run by logging in with ssh as one user, then su to another user and running the program with the & then logging out. Can't remember if I logged in as root first or another user first though so you may have to try both (if it even makes a difference).

Agrouf · 08-02-2007, 02:13 AM

ssh accontrol
export DISPLAY=localhost:0
nohup control_app_command