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I am trying to use Windows subsystem for Linux to access my Linux workstation at work. I am a very novice user and am not able to get GUI X forwarding to work. I am able to SSH into the machine with -X but when I call a GUI like xclock the connection is refused.

user@localmachine: export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
user@localmachine: ssh -X username@remoteserver
username@remoteserver password:
Warning: No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding.
remoteserver: echo $DISPLAY
localhost:11.0
xclock
connect localhost port 6000: Connection refused
Error: Can't open display: localhost:11.0

The following is set/checked

  • in sshd_config X11Forwarding is set to yes
  • I have tried opening port 6000 in Windows Firewall, but no difference.

P.S. I am able to open xclock, or any other GUI, with SSH -X from my Fedora laptop to the remote server. From this I deduce that the server side is setup as it should.

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I was unaware that WSL in its current form does not support GUIs. Installing a X server that is compatible with Windows 10 was the solution.

I have chosen to install VcXsrv (https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/)

The following settings were used "Multiple windows, Display number = -1, start no client, Clipboard enabled, Native opengl enabled, and disable access control enabled)

After this GUIs are passed and opened successfully through ssh on Windows 10.

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