SSH and Reflection X to HP-UX 11.x

[John de Villiers]

I installed SSH for HP-UX 11.00 and configured it. I can connect to ssh from my linux box.

Now, on my desktop, i have Reflection X 9.0. What other hoops do i have to jump through to make relection X talk SSH instead of cleartext ?

[Dirk Wiedemann · Accepted solution]

Hello John,

have a look at http://ait.web.psi.ch/services/ssh/reflectionX-ssh.html.
This should be helpful.

regards
Dirk

[Stefan Farrelly]

You'll need to install and configure ssh on your desktop first. Then run it, make a ssh connection to your HP servers's sshd daemon, then run reflectionX (after youve configured ssh on your desktop to allow X11 tunneling) - unless your version of ReflectionX has ssh built-in then all you need to do is configure it and activate it.

[John de Villiers]

great. Now the basic connection is working...
But, whether i use putty or cygwin i get this problem.

I sepcify a program to execute ( for cygwin i use the default sample provided by reflection ). In both cases i get the following error on my target host:
Could not reverse map address 11.2.3.33.

Also, i presume you have to set your DISPLAY variable in a special way to force the traffic over ssh ?

[U.SivaKumar_2]

Hi,
If you using DNS name while connecting using
ssh , it expects that the IP address should have a IP address - to - name mapping entry
available ( it will do a reverse lookup)in DNS server. So add this inverse entry in x.x.x.in-address.arpa zone of your DNS server.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Dirk Wiedemann]

When I access via ssh and client putty from a Win NT system the DISPLAY variable on the remote server isn't set, only the variable SSH_CLIENT=ip_nt_system nt_port ssh-port.
When I access via ssh from a linux box the SSH_CLIENT variable is set in the same way and in addition the DISPLAY variable as linux_ip:X11DisplayOffset:0.
Anyway: the message "could not reverse..." means that your remote system tries to make a reverse lookup for the ip adress of your windows system and can't get a name. This is not critical and can be ignored. If your windows system has a static ip adress you can add it to the /etc/hosts file on server or the dns maps of your dns server to avoid this message and make communication a little bit faster. If your windows system gets the ip from DHCP don't add it to the file or dns because the ip adress dynamically changed after release time.
If your application works everything is allright, if not there must be another problem.

regards
Dirk

[Rick Beldin]

When ssh has X11 port forwarding turned on, it will take the local (in your case the PC's) hostname and construct a DISPLAY variable that will be passed along to the remote side. In a Unix to Unix environment, it actually will take whatever you have DISPLAY set to and pass that to the remote end.

If you use Putty, you can also specify some environment variables in one of the option fields. I've had putty working in a PC->HP-UX and PC-Linux environment in this manner and have the DISPLAY pointing off to another DISPLAY rather than the Reflections/X one. In this way, I am using it more like a bridge than anything else.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all X-clients are equal. X11R5 clients in particular are rather fussy because they have the ability (at least on HP-UX) to use different transports. This can mean that the X clients can get confused with the localhost:10 DISPLAY of the remote 'dummy' Xserver when using ssh. The best way around this is to set the ssh config variable on the remote end, X11UseLocalhost to no. This will turn your remote DISPLAY name to the form nn.nn.nn.nn:10 which fools X11R5 into thinking that the DISPLAY is remote.

[John de Villiers]

Dirk - i have the same problem with the display variable. If i set it manually, what should i set it to. What is the significance of SSH_CLIENT ?

The reverse lookup problem i solved by adding my winpc's ip into the hosts file.

John

[Dirk Wiedemann]

The SSH_CLIENT is an environment variable which can be used from every program started in this session to determine the informations about the actual ssh-connection.
Plaese have a look at Ricks excellent posting.
I can't give you detailled explanations in configuring Reflection/X because I doesn't use it. I only use X applications from my linux box.
But you should do least:
On client enable X11 forwarding to submit your local DISPLAY variable to the sshd.
And on the remote system set X11UseLocalhost to no in the config file /usr/local/etc/openssh/sshd_config (as Rick has already posted). Don't forget restarting the sshd. After that your DISPLAY variable is set automatically to the right value.

regards
Dirk

[John de Villiers]

ok i got it working properly with cygwin. My Xterm starts up and everything is fine.

Putty is a problem though. I think i should add plink to process.

[John de Villiers]

I managed to get putty working correctly. the execute command has to look like this:
/usr/bin/X11/xterm -fn 6x13 -sb -sl 999 -ls -name HOSTNAME