xauth/ssh and apple's X

Cow Loon

Registered
I'm using ssh -X to run programs on my linux box on my X server on mac os X 10.3.7 and this works well for about 5 minutes, and then the program becomes unresponsive. Do you know what the problem might be there?

I thought I'd see if I get a different result using xauth, but I'm failing. I can run X apps locally on linux and on mac os x. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong. Here is what I have done:

on linuxbox:
xauth nextract cookie :0.0
scp cookie osxbox:cookie

on osxbox:
xauth nmerge cookie
xauth nextract cookie :0.0
scp cookie linuxbox:cookie

on linuxbox:
xauth nmerge cookie

on linuxbox:
xterm -display osxbox:0.0

Xlib: connection to "osxbox:0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

xterm Xt error: Can't open display: osxbox:0.0
 
If it happens reliably after 5 minutes I would look for a firewall timeout somewhere. Stateful firewalls will usually have an upper limit on how long they will let certain connections stay. % minutes is kind of short but it could be that that is the default and they don't have a longer special case for ssh (which they should).
 
Hmm. I've added TCPKeepAlive no and ClientAliveInterval 0 to sshd_config on the linux box, but I still find my X apps frozen after a while. It could be that it happens after inactivity, so that's why I thought those 2 sshd options might make sense.

Any thoughts on what I need to do to get xauth working?
 
Ooh, here is an interesting detail:

on osxbox
echo $DISPLAY
> :0.0
xterm
> success
xterm -display $DISPLAY
> Bus error

... Is that familiar to you?
 
It looks like ssh is now working without hanging, after I added KeepAlive no to my ssh_config file on the macosx box. This is together with the other two changes which were in the sshd_config file on the linux box.
 
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