Remote X11 installs statistics

Remote X11

When working in a remote environment, this extension sets the DISPLAY environment variable so that X windows applications started from Visual Studio Code appear on the local machine.

For this extension to work, it must be installed on the remote machine, and you must be running an X server on the local machine. For SSH connections, the Remote X11 (SSH) extension must also be installed on the local machine (this should be installed automatically when you install this extension).

You may need to change some settings for this to work with SSH! Please check the "Authentication Settings" section below, as this extension cannot use VS Code's SSH authentication, and it does not support all SSH authentication methods.

For Windows hosts, this extension has only been tested with VcXsrv, but other servers such as Cygwin/X, Xming, and X410 should also work. Windows remotes are not currently supported.

For SSH connections, if the remote machine does not have Bash installed, you must change the remoteX11.SSH.displayCommand setting and provide a command that prints the value of the DISPLAY variable. If you are using port forwarding, you may also need to change the remoteX11.SSH.port setting. See below for more details.

Access Control

For containers and WSL 2, you will need to either authorize with your X server or disable access control.

For SSH and WSL 1 targets, connections to the X server will come from the local machine, so you should not need to configure anything for these to work.

X11 Forwarding

The Remote - SSH extension does not currently enable X11 forwarding (see issue [#267](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/267)). To work around this, the Remote X11 (SSH) extension creates an SSH connection to the remote machine with forwarding enabled in the background.

This extension currently only supports public key authentication. See below for more details on authentication settings.

Extension Settings

Changes to settings will normally apply automatically after a short delay. You may need to restart any terminals if setting changes result in the DISPLAY variable changing.

You can also use F1 > Remote X11: Reconnect Display to force an update.

• remoteX11.display - Display number to connect to. Change this if your X server is using a display other than 0. • remoteX11.screen - Screen number to connect to. • remoteX11.container.enable - Set DISPLAY for containers? • remoteX11.SSH.enable - Enable X11 forwarding and set DISPLAY for SSH targets? • remoteX11.SSH.authenticationMethod: • keyFile - Authenticate with the private key file specified by remoteX11.SSH.privateKey. Passphrase-protected keys are not supported. • agent - Use ssh-agent to get keys. This method does support passphrase-protected keys. • remoteX11.SSH.agent - Name of a Unix socket or Windows named pipe for ssh-agent. Set to pageant to use Pageant on Windows. If left empty, defaults to Windows 10's OpenSSH agent (\\.\pipe\openssh-ssh-agent) or the SSH_AUTH_SOCK environment variable on other platforms. Only used if remoteX11.SSH.authenticationMethod is agent. • remoteX11.SSH.privateKey - Absolute path to your SSH private key file. Only used if remoteX11.SSH.authenticationMethod is publicKey. • remoteX11.SSH.XAuthPermissionLevel - Select between untrusted (ssh -X) and trusted (ssh -Y) permissions. • remoteX11.SSH.X11ConnectionType - Select between TCP and Unix sockets for the X11 connection. Defaults to tcp on Windows hosts or unix otherwise. • remoteX11.SSH.X11Socket - Selects the Unix socket to connect to. The screen number is appended to the end of this setting. • remoteX11.SSH.displayCommand - A command which prints DISPLAY= followed by a newline, where is the value of the DISPLAY variable. Note that there must not be any spaces in this text. Change this when connecting to a machine that doesn't support the default command. • remoteX11.SSH.timeout - Number of seconds to wait for the SSH shell to respond to the above command. Use 0 to wait forever. • remoteX11.SSH.host - Sets the hostname or IP address used to connect to the SSH server. Use this if Remote X11 tries to connect to the wrong address. • remoteX11.SSH.port - Sets the port used to connect to the SSH server. Use this if Remote X11 tries to connect to the wrong port. • remoteX11.WSL.enable - Set DISPLAY for WSL targets?

Authentication Settings

Remote X11 currently only supports public key authentication. You must use ssh-keygen to generate a public/private key pair and add your public key to your server's ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.

There are two ways RemoteX11 can be configured to get keys:

Private Key File

If the remoteX11.SSH.authenticationMethod setting is keyFile, Remote X11 will read the file given by the remoteX11.SSH.privateKey file as your private key. This defaults to ~/.ssh/id_rsa, so you must change it if your file is named differently.

This method does not support passphrase-protected private keys! See below for methods that do.

SSH Agent

If the remoteX11.SSH.authenticationMethod setting is agent, Remote X11 will use ssh-agent to read keys added with ssh-add. See the VS Code documentation for instructions on enabling the SSH Agent.

To add your key to the SSH agent, open a terminal on the local machine and run:

If your key is passphrase-protected, you will be prompted to enter the passphrase. You can then log in without re-entering the passphrase.

On Windows, you can also use Pageant instead of the built-in OpenSSH agent by changing the remoteX11.SSH.agent setting to pageant.

Troubleshooting

Is the extension installed?

When in a remote workspace, open the Extensions view (Ctrl+X) and check that "Remote X11" is installed and enabled on the remote machine. If you are using an SSH connection, also check that "Remote X11 (SSH)" is installed and enabled on the local machine.

Check the logs…

Description from the VS Code Marketplace listing.