How do I get SSH & X Windows working?

A reader sent in an appeal for some Linux help this morning:

I have your book Teach Yourself Unix System Administration in 24 Hours, but still have some questions:

I have root access to a remote server which is limited to SSH. Can I make an X-server connection and how do I do that while I have an X-server already running?

From that remote server I need to take files located in a particular account and copy them to a new local server I've installed.

How do I set up an SSL enabled login account for someone accessing the new local server?

Dave's Answer: Great questions. Without knowing the exact flavor of Linux you're running, there's only so much help I can offer, but let's take a shot at this, shall we?

First off, you can definitely get X running via SSH. Have a look at the so-called tunnelling capabilities of the ssh command that you access by appending it to the usual ssh invocation. Here's what the man page says: "ssh (SSH client) is a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine... X11 connections and arbitrary TCP/IP ports can also be forwarded over the secure channel". You might also check out how the '-X' flag to ssh works too, if you're working with X Windows.

Copying files from one system to another via ssh is even easier: check out the sftp secure version of the FTP program. It is quite scriptable (as I explore in Wicked Cool Shell Scripts) if you don't want to use it manually too.

Finally, in terms of setting up a secure-only login account, you'll want to turn off telnet access (see "inetd" or "xinetd") and give those folk regular login accounts: the only way they'll be able to connect will be via ssh.

Hope this helps you out!

Categorized: Unix and Linux Help (Article 3747, Written by Dave Taylor)
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