Re: X11 forwarding with headless Ubuntu host

On 2026-05-25 07:17, Christian Gelinek wrote:
> Dear group,
> 
> 1. My workstation "gar" is running Debian 12 with XFCE.
> 
> 2. I have another PC "marlin" running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with XFCE.
> 
> 3. I recently added a PC "octopus" running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Server, 
> without desktop environment.
> 
> 4. Both "marlin" and "octopus" have a user "localadmin", on "gar" my 
> username is "cgelinek".
> 
> 5. I'd like to `ssh -Y localadmin@octopus` from "gar" and then start a 
> podman container with `xeyes` in it and be able to see it on my screen 
> on "gar".
> 
> 6. I can do that with "marlin" (i.e. `ssh -Y localadmin@marlin`), but 
> not with "octopus".
> 
> Some debugging suggests that when I `ssh -Y localadmin@octopus`, on 
> octopus
> 
>  * $DISPLAY is localhost:10.0,
>  * /home/localadmin/.Xauthority has the date of connection but
>  * $XAUTHORITY is empty.
>  * Unsurprisingly, when I try to run `xeyes` from within a container 
> (with DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY being forwarded), it stops with `Error: 
> Can't open display: localhost:10.0`.
> 
> I have checked that xauth is installed on octopus and have run out of 
> ideas what to try next, any ideas?
> 
> Thanks for your time,
> Christian

I don't know what a podman container is.
You can export X from marlin but not from octopus?
I'd compare the sshd config file on octopus with the one on marlin

mick