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Is it possible to run a GUI application (firefox / xterm / GNU plot) on an Ubuntu server (The server does not have X11 installed) over an SSH with X11 forwarding (The client has X11 installed)?

I am unable to experiment and try it out :-( Has anyone tried this?

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When using X11 only need a X server on the machine that has the keyboard and monitor you want to use, you don't need a X server on the machine the applications (X clients) are running on.

So yes, you can use the programs from your client over SSH.

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  • Thanks :-) So does that mean that I will also not need to have xvfb installed on the server? What I understand is that X11 clients direct the output to xvfb (something like directing to /dev/null ?) , but with X11 forwarding, it is directing the output over ssh. Have I got anything wrong?
    – Lord Loh.
    Apr 3, 2012 at 20:14
  • You don't need any X server on the server. The X clients connect to the X server that is running on your client machine with SSH working as some kind of tunnel that is forwarding the data between the two machines. Apr 3, 2012 at 20:34

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