Configure Xming display on WSL2 - wsl-2

I'm trying to configure an Xming display on my WSL2, and after an amount of troubleshooting attempts, I'm quite clueless.
For details:
System: WSL2 on Windows10Pro
Xming: installed. Some hopefully relevant lines from log:
Xming :0 -multiwindow -clipboard
XdmcpRegisterConnection: newAddress 172.27.16.1
Could not init font path element C:\Program Files (x86)\Xming/fonts/100dpi/, removing from list! (there are a few of these)
winInitMultiWindowWM - DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0
winInitMultiWindowWM - XOpenDisplay () returned and successfully opened the display.
winMultiWindowXMsgProc - XOpenDisplay () returned and successfully opened the display.
winClipboardProc - XOpenDisplay () returned and successfully opened the display.
Firewall:
What I've tried: (on WSL2 terminal)
export DISPLAY=$(awk '/nameserver / {print $2; exit}' /etc/resolv.conf 2>/dev/null):0
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1
As shown here
export DISPLAY=$(grep -m 1 nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | awk '{print $2}'):0.0
As shown ni subsequent link here
export DISPLAY=172.27.16.1 (/:0/:0.0)
as taken from the Xming log.
Results so far: in all cases I get
No protocol specified
Error: Can't open display: 172.27.16.1:0
or alike
Any advice?

Finally, a friend found a solution that worked for me.
In short:
use putty to open a WSL terminal and export DISPLAY variable as WORKSTATION_IP:0.0
in Xlaunch, check the "No Access Control" box.
I've put this as instructions in layman's terms in this short doc

I had success using
export DISPLAY=$(grep -m 1 nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | awk '{print $2}'):0.0
with Xming allowed through the Windows firewall for both private and public networks as you did (note for other users there are a couple of entries in the firewall settings for Xming). I then launched Xming using "Xlaunch" (Start > Xming > Xlaunch), selected Multiple Windows and then checked "No Access Control" on the "Specify Parameter Settings" screen. This last step appears to be the key one I was missing. Launching Xming.exe with the -ac option should achieve the same effect.

Add the IP address in the X0.hosts file (find it in the Xming installation directory). This file defines which hosts it will allow connections from.
Other option is to use the -ac option, however this will disable all access control restrictions...

U can use VcxSrv
xLaunch
use this settings

In my my case, I had to add XLaunch.exe to the Windows Firewall exceptions. I had Xming.exe added to the firewall when I installed it but not Xlaunch.exe.
To test quickly, just turn-off windows firewall then try running any linux gui app. Of course, you gotta do the export Display command first.

Related

WSL2 error: _tkinter.TclError: couldn't connect to display "127.0.0.1:0.0"

I have this error when run my python file: _tkinter.TclError: couldn't connect to display "127.0.0.1:0.0".
I mention that I am running VSCODE in WSL2 distro and Windows Pylance installed along with tkinter last version.
In my ZSH terminal I have added this line as it is recommended by Microsoft for WSL2: export DISPLAY=$(grep -m 1 nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | awk '{print $2}'):0.0. Commands like export DISPLAY=:0 doesn't work at all on WSL2.
Many thanks for any help,
vhij
LE: I have Windows 11 with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS distro, Xming and VcXsrv.
I have solved now after many trials and combinations, but it works now:
$ nano ~/.zshrc
Copied this 2 lines:
export DISPLAY=$(awk '/nameserver / {print $2; exit}' /etc/resolv.conf 2>/dev/null):0
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1
$ source ~/.zshrc
Then in Windows: open XLaunch: Multiple windows -> Start no client -> Check 'Disable access control' -> Finish.
After that, I went on Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security and made 'green' status to all of VcXsrv and Xming X Server in Inbound Rules: Properties -> Allow the connection -> OK. (I have tried to add in Scope -> Remote IP address -> These IP addressess -> 172.72.0.1, but it didn't worked).
Then I run the python script successfully and tkinter window pop-up.

WSL2 use "localhost" to access Windows service

I'm using WSL2 on Windows 10.
My dev stack is using a local webserver (localwp or wamp) on the host OS.
I use WSL2 as the main terminal (SSH, Git, SASS, automation tools, ...).
What I need is a way to connect to my host services (MySql) from the WSL2 system using a server name instead of a random IP address.
It is already possible for the Windows host to connect to WSL2 services with "localhost". Is there a solution to do it the other way?
You should use hostname.local to access Windows from WSL2 because that will use the correct IP. Note that hostname should be replaced with the result of the hostname command run in WSL2.
You can check the IP by running ping $(hostname).local from WSL2.
You also need to add a firewall rule to allow traffic from WSL2 to Windows. In an elevated PowerShell prompt run this:
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "WSL" -Direction Inbound -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (WSL)" -Action Allow
The command above should allow you to access anything exposed by Windows from WSL, no matter what port, however bear in mind that any apps you've launched get an automated rule created for them when you first launch them, blocking access from public networks (this is when you get a prompt from Windows Firewall, asking whether the app should be allowed to accept connections from public networks).
If you don't explicitly allow, they will be blocked by default, which also blocks connections from WSL. So you might need to find that inbound rule, and change it from block to allow (or just delete it).
See info here:
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4585#issuecomment-610061194
Well, your title and your question body don't seem quite aligned.
The question title says "use localhost", but then in the body you say "using a server name."
Accessing the Windows 10 service via the name "localhost" from WSL2? Let's just go with "no". I can think of a possibility of how to make it work, but it would be complicated.
But I think the second is really what you are looking for, so a couple of options that I can think of for accessing the Windows host services by hostname in WSL2:
First, and hopefully the easiest, WSL2 supports mDNS (WSL1 did not), so you should be able to access the Windows host as {hostname}.local (where {hostname} is the name of the Windows host (literally, in bash, ping $(hostname).local, since the assigned WSL2 hostname is that of the host Windows 10 computer). That works for me. While I don't recall having to do anything special to enable this, this Super User answer seems to indicate that you have to turn it on manually.
The second option would be to add your Windows host IP to /etc/hosts. If your Windows IP is static, then you could just add it manually to /etc/hosts and be done. If it's dynamic, then you might want to script it. You can retrieve it from inside WSL2 via:
powershell.exe "(Test-Connection -ComputerName (hostname) -Count 1).IPV4Address.IPAddressToString" (and other methods) and then use something like sed to change /etc/hosts.
Add the following code to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc, and then use winhost to access the host ip。
sed -i -e '/winhost/d' /etc/hosts
win_ip=$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{ print $2 }')
win_host="$win_ip winhost"
echo $win_host >> /etc/hosts
The last time I was facing this issue,
I downgraded to WSL1, and all the connections started working perfectly.
You can use:
wsl --set-version Ubuntu 1
This is the easiest approach to fix all connection related issues in WSL2.

putty + xming: cannot connect to Xserver in Windows 7

I am trying to use putty and XMing to run programs from my Fedora 20. I used this configuration before on other machines and I was able to run GUI programs on Linux and display them in my windows 7. But this time I have trouble and get the "cannot connect to X server" error when I try to launch kwrite and kdesvn which are GUI programs in Fedora 20. The connections were good. And the XMing server was running and the X11 forwarding was enabled in putty, like the instruction here.
From my another Fedora 20 machine, I was able to connect to and run GUI programs from the target machine with ssh -X and the same username. So I am thinking the settings of the target machine was right.
Then what else I can try? how to figure out where the problem is?
Ensure that X11 forwarding is enabled in /etc/sshd_config.
X11Forwarding yes
Ensure in your home directory that you have an .Xauthority file. Permissions should be set 0600. If the file does not exist create it.
touch ~/.Xauthority
chmod 0600 ~/.Xauthority
As was previous stated first make sure that X11 forwarding is enabled in PuTTY.
Config > Connection > SSH > X11 > Enable X11 Forwarding. Based on your question it appears you already did this. Make sure you save this config.
I had a problem much like this, what happened to me was that my DISPLAY was being set elsewhere. If you can, try opening a new settion via putty from the same Windows machine using another user and then checking the display and testing your GUI programs
Another thing would be to use your own user but remove any custom work you may have done in your configuration, login fresh, check the DISPLAY and then test X
Did you enable X11 in putty?
It's under SSH | X11 | Enable X11 Forwarding
Then save the putty profile and click on session | save | open
Should work perfectly after you make those changes.

Forwarding X11 without SSH? How do I run local apps on another Pc running X Server?

I am using Cygwin X and Debian. I can forward my X session via SSH but what happens is that I seem to loose the display forwarding in the X session once in a while (from Cygwin to Linux). So i am guessing that that is an imnplementation thing with Cygwin because I never loose X11 display in the same ssh session when I use Linux to Linux.
This also happens when a X11 forwarded app tries to fork another process lets say I run Thunderbird and I click on a url inside an email. Naturally Thurderbird will try to start the default web browser but it is not doing it with Cygwin X server and here is the message I get when SSH session gives up the display for various reasons that I am not able to know.
"Error: cannot open display: localhost:10.0"
The other issue is that since the ssh gives up the display variable, I have to restart my ssh session to get it working which also kills other apps that I might be running during the ssh session.
Anyway after struggling with this for a while I am thinking that I want to be able to open my apps on another display without using ssh forwarding. I am using it internally and it is almost a closed lan so I am not worried about the security for now. I just want to be able to run the app on the Linux then see the app on the Pc that is running Cygwin.
I tried basic DISPLAY variable thing like "export DISPLAY=MY_CYGWIN_PC_IP:0.0" (on Linux Pc) but it does not work.
So I am wondering about how I can achieve this. What are the proper settings to achieve what i need?
Your direction was OK. export DISPLAY is what you want. But it is not enough.
On the target, you need to type
xhost +from.where.the.windows.are.coming.com
It gives the X server the permission to allow remote windows from this computer.
Beware, it is not really secure! A possible attacker could not only windows shown by you, but even control your mouse/keyboard. But for simple solutions, or if you can trust the remote machine and the network between you, it may be ok.
If not, there is an advanced authorization, based on preshared keys. It is named xauth. Google for xauth.
The Xorg server has an option to disable the remote windows, and there are distributions, (f.e. ubuntu!) who turn this option by default on. You can test it - if you can telnet to the tcp port 6000, it is allowed.
If you are using ssh -X, don't. Use ssh -Y
Cygwin XWin server randomly loses connection
Basically to work as old times , we need enable xdmcp on display manager and use X11 , Xwayland seems to me that doesn't work either.
sddm doesn't support xdmcp , but gdm does , you need edit /etc/gdm/custom.conf and add
[security]
DisallowTCP=false
[xdmcp]
Enable=true
xhost + ip_of_remote_computer
echo $DISPLAY (the number of the display usually :0 or :1)
after you can verify :
netstat -l | grep xdmcp
udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:xdmcp 0.0.0.0:*
lsof -i :xdmcp
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
gdm 862335 root 12u IPv4 71774686 0t0 UDP *:xdmcp
on remote host :
export DISPLAY="ip_of_server:0" (see if is 0 or other number in echo $DISPLAY on server mention above )
xclock &
References:
http://www.softpanorama.org/Xwindows/Troubleshooting/can_not_open_display.shtml
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/XDMCP-HOWTO/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDMCP

Cygwin home directory on target system inconsistent

I am having difficulty connecting to a remote Windows system running cygwin.
When I connect from a linux box to cygwin, it connects fine and "sees" the
remote home directory as /home/userID
When I connect from Windows cygwin to the remote windows cygwin, it sees
the home directory as /cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings/UserID
Finally, when I am logged onto the remote Windows machine (the one with the problem)
home is /home/UseID but the value for cygpath -H is
$ echo $(cygpath -H)
/cygdrive/c/Documents and Settings
This seems to be causing my connection problem from windows to windows
and no problem from linux to windows
Any ideas how to fix it?
Since you have the correct path in /etc/passwd, one possibility is that perhaps the SSH client you are using from your Windows systems is sending custom environment values.
If you're using PuTTY, before connecting, look in the tree panel on the left hand side of the dialog. There should be an entry called Connection and a sub-entry called Data which will bring you to an option screen that has a section called Environment variables. Check if the HOME var is being overridden there and if so, remove it.
If you're using a different SSH client, check its configuration to see if its using the SendEnv option. More info on that here: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=ssh_config.
Or you could try blocking off custom environments on the destination/server side by disabling AcceptEnv in the SSHd configuration on the system you're connecting to. More info on that here: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=sshd_config.
Hope this helps.

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