background start of Xwin app

[Victor Makarov]

Hi all,
I have an Xwindow application and want to start in as a background process. The problem is that the application requires an X server to run to display its output.
So, the application stops as it detects that no DISPLAY is set, or set to unexistent Xserver.
I want to start my application and don't need access to it interactively.
Do anybody know how to manage this problem?
May be software exists that emulate Xserver...
Any solution

Thanks in advance
Victor

PS. the application is Lotus Notes client 4.6.7 on HPUX 11.00

[Steve Steel · Accepted solution]

Hi

You need xvfb

Yes it is supported. On either platform add the latest X server patch for
11.00 that is PHSS_25277, and for 11i PHSS_25263. Start at "man Xserver" and
dig down for information. You will notice that HP now ships two complete X
servers, the HP proprietry one and an HP customised version of XFree86 in
addition to Xvfb. You should also note that prior to adding separate
binaries for Xvfb and Xf86 a virtual frame buffer mode was added to the
existing proprietry implementation Xhp, so also look at "man Xhp" and search
for "XVFB". Most of the above is very new so it probably a case of playing
with what is supplied and seeing what works best for you, VFB in the HP X
server arrived around June last year and the XFree86 and separate Xvfb
things have only been available for a couple of months.


Steve Steel

[Stefan Farrelly]

We have a similar application. What we used to do was;
1. Leave an HP workstation logged into X and xhost + run so our app could talk to it for logging (No-one allowed to use the workstation)
2. Then we bought an X Display card for our 800 (K class) and again logged into X when it boots and run xhost + so our app can talk to it.
3. Now were thinking of replacing it with a dumb linux PC which we stick in a corner, log into X on it, run xhost + so our app can talk to that!

We never found a way to trick X so that our app would run without actually talking to an X display running somewhere.

[Bill Hassell]

In Xwindows, the X server is some sort of display device. If you do not runn Unix workstations with CDE or some other Xwindow manager, you must provide something that can display the output of the program. For a PC, this would be an Xwindow emulator such as WRQ's Reflection/X or Hummingbird's eXceed. These are not simple programs as Xwindows is a complex network protocol. There may be some freeware that will work but be prepared to learn more about Xwindows than you wanted to.

Once you have an Xwindow server running on your display system, use telnet to login to the application box, then set the DISPLAY variable to your display system's IP address followed by :0 as in:

export DISPLAY=12.34.56.78:0

Then run Lotus. Start by running Lotus in the foreground (don't use & at the end) so you can check how the program is doing. Once it is working, you can terminate the program and restart it with something like:

export DISPLAY=12.34.56.78:0
lotus-program &

[bjs144]

Do not know if it will work and I have not tested it, worth a quick try maybe.

Try export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1

Thsi may trick xwindows but maybe not!