[SOLVED] ssh -x timing out

timl · 09-30-2019, 02:13 AM

Hi All, my main PC runs Fedora 29 I use X Windows to initiate programs on a Raspberry Pi 3

Quote:

ssh -X pi@10.1.1.91 "midori" &

This morning I upgraded raspbian on the Pi from stretch to buster. I achieved this by modifying source.lis and raspi.lis to reference buster rather than stretch then

Quote:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

After a reboot I am experiencing a few problems. The first is that the X windows session is not stable. It dies after a period of time. I can't figure out the actual period of time. I hear there is a ForwardX11Timeout setting which I can add to .ssh/config but I have never used this in the past. I had a look in journalctl but nothing jumped out at me.

Recapping then, any suggestions why a remote X windows session to a recently upgraded Pi initiated from Fedora would time out/get lost?

Turbocapitalist · 09-30-2019, 02:47 AM

That would be in the SSH client's configuration and unrelated to the infamous systemd, though scope creep might see that change in future versions. See instead "man ssh_config" for the ForwardX11Timeout directive which defaults to 20 minutes. The manual does not say but I suspect that if it is set to 0 then X11 is allowed indefinitely.

However, the launch is done incorrectly. If you would like the client to go into the background, use the -f option:

Code:

ssh -f -X -l pi 10.1.1.91 "midori &"

Then the ampersand (&) will be optional. Either way, mind the quotes.

You may also be interested in ServerAliveCountMax and ServerAliveInterval.

Some settings can be made permanent in ~/.ssh/config:

Code:

Host 10.1.1.*
        User pi
        ForwardX11Timeout 0
        ServerAliveCountMax 3
        ServerAliveInterval 15

Host *
        TCPKeepAlive yes

timl · 09-30-2019, 03:09 AM

thanks turbocapitalist. I'll research the suggestions you made.

timl · 10-03-2019, 02:41 AM

Updating this: the Raspberry Pi folks suggest an update path but don't recommend it. I just burned a new SD card and all is fine

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/bus...n-of-raspbian/