switcher22 said:
I am trying to view X11 applications from an UNIX server on my Mac. I've tried downloading a VNC viewer client (VNC Dimentions), but so far no luck.
I've also heard that you can do it directly through Terminal.
If anyone can help me out (step by step instructions would be a plus) with this that would be great.
First thing you need to do have X11 running on your Mac. It's in Utilities (assuming it's installed).
Then you need to connect to the Unix server with ssh (you do this from the command line, using Terminal). By default the Mac won't have X11 forwarding turned on, so you'll need to turn it on. You can either do this when you run ssh:
Code:
ssh -X [i]remote_host_name[/i]
... or else you can turn it on permanently in your config file. Simplest way to do the that is to create a file named "config" in the .ssh directory that's in your home directory (/Users/
yourname/.ssh), and put the following lines in it:
Code:
ForwardAgent yes
ForwardX11 yes
Once you're connected to the remote server, just type the name of the X11 app - that's it! If it doesn't work, it's quite possible the admin of the server has X11 forwarding turned off. Unless that admin is also you, there's not a lot you can do about it other than beg him/her to turn it on.
Edit: Note that VNC really has nothing to do with X11. VNC is a tool that lets you view/control a desktop that's running on a remote computer. It could be an X11 desktop, but it could also be a Windows or OS X desktop. Also, it's not a very secure way to do things unless you tunnel your VNC session through ssh - but that's another story.