Submitted by bkorb on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 17:59. General Questions
Hello, I am not a Motif developer and never want to be. I'd just like to be able to use my X programs through an ssh tunnel. Unfortunately, _all_ X applications respond with the same error message that reveals exactly nothing about what the problem is or what to do about it. The programmer suggestion about setting magic command line options would only work if I were a firefox developer. I'm not. Here is the non-informative error message:
X Error of failed request: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
Major opcode of failed request: 55 (X_CreateGC)
Resource id in failed request: 0x64
Serial number of failed request: 1
Current serial number in output stream: 4
Since _all_ X applications have the same message, it has to be a configuration issue. Googling on the first line will get you a few hundred hits, but no answers about what to do about it. :( Help, please? Preferably with directions that can make sense to a neophyte trying to get things to "just work"?
P.S. I got here via Google pointing to:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3091
Hi bkorb,
I was running into a similar prob to you this morning, and in my fiddling came accross someone who suggested using the "ssh -Y" version of tunelling instead of the "ssh -X" version. Here's a section from the ssh man page:
-X Enables X11 forwarding. This can also be specified on a per-host
basis in a configuration file.
X11 forwarding should be enabled with caution. Users with the
ability to bypass file permissions on the remote host (for the
user's X authorization database) can access the local X11 display
through the forwarded connection. An attacker may then be able
to perform activities such as keystroke monitoring.
For this reason, X11 forwarding is subjected to X11 SECURITY
extension restrictions by default. Please refer to the ssh -Y
option and the ForwardX11Trusted directive in ssh_config(5) for
more information.
-x Disables X11 forwarding.
-Y Enables trusted X11 forwarding. Trusted X11 forwardings are not
subjected to the X11 SECURITY extension controls.
So you might try "ssh -Y". Worked for me.
cheers
Mat