Using OpenSSH to login to AIX from Windows
Stephen...@gmail.com
PUTTY is giving me a telnet connection to the AIX box. Works right out
of the box - I am impressed.
I would like to run SMIT in X11 graphical mode instead of the telnet
mode PUTTY is giving me. In general I would like to run the KDE desktop
thru OpenSSH to the AIX system. How can I do that?
thanks,
-Steve
VinceM
will need to run an X-windows server like WinaXe on your workstaion.
However this is session will not be encrypted like an SSH PUTTY session if
security is a concern.
<Stephen...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1159468630.7...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Frank Fegert
> I am using PUTTY to login to my AIX system from a Windows XP system.
> PUTTY is giving me a telnet connection to the AIX box. Works right out
> of the box - I am impressed.
This has always been working out-of-the-box, so don't be too
impressed ;-)
> I would like to run SMIT in X11 graphical mode instead of the telnet
> mode PUTTY is giving me. In general I would like to run the KDE desktop
> thru OpenSSH to the AIX system. How can I do that?
I'd rather not. KDE is most likely drowning your machine and
you don't need it anyway even if you want to run smit in the
graphical mode (which i find strange to begin with). Just fire
up an X-Server on your M$-box, connect via Putty (make sure
you have X11-forwarding enabled for that session and on the
SSH-server side) and test by calling e.g. xterm. If you've
done it right a xterm-window will pop up on your M$-box. You
only need KDE running if you want to work at the machine it-
self.
Regards,
Frank
Stephen...@gmail.com
Frank Fegert wrote:
> Stephen...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I am using PUTTY to login to my AIX system from a Windows XP system.
> > PUTTY is giving me a telnet connection to the AIX box. Works right out
> > of the box - I am impressed.
>
> This has always been working out-of-the-box, so don't be too
> impressed ;-)
>
> > I would like to run SMIT in X11 graphical mode instead of the telnet
> > mode PUTTY is giving me. In general I would like to run the KDE desktop
> > thru OpenSSH to the AIX system. How can I do that?
>
> I'd rather not. KDE is most likely drowning your machine and
> you don't need it anyway even if you want to run smit in the
> graphical mode (which i find strange to begin with).
I dont follow. I run SMIT from safe mode on the AIX system and get GUI
like panels that work pretty well. The telnet SMIT is not as good as
that.
> Just fire
> up an X-Server on your M$-box, connect via Putty (make sure
> you have X11-forwarding enabled for that session and on the
> SSH-server side) and test by calling e.g. xterm. If you've
> done it right a xterm-window will pop up on your M$-box.
This is the route I am taking now. I have installed CYGWIN on my XP PC:
http://www.cygwin.com/
I have XServer installed. When I run "xstart" it starts up an xterm.
Where would I config the X guy to connect to my AIX system? And how
does PuTTY get in the mix? Do I xterm to putty and then putty SSHes to
AIX?
Is there a SMIT command for configuring the SSH server?
thanks,
-Steve
Frank Fegert
> I dont follow. I run SMIT from safe mode on the AIX system and get GUI
> like panels that work pretty well. The telnet SMIT is not as good as
> that.
Drop your telneting now, and just use SSH. Telnet is not secure
in any way and you should really *not* get yourself used to it.
For the rest see below ...
> This is the route I am taking now. I have installed CYGWIN on my XP PC:
> http://www.cygwin.com/
Ok, i must have overread that you already have cygwin in place.
Since you have a running X on your PC, just install the Cygwin
OpenSSH package on the PC.
> I have XServer installed. When I run "xstart" it starts up an xterm.
> Where would I config the X guy to connect to my AIX system? And how
> does PuTTY get in the mix? Do I xterm to putty and then putty SSHes to
> AIX?
You don't tell your X on the PC to talk to the X on the AIX
system. It's the other way round. But lets take it step by step.
After installing OpenSSH (see above) and starting X on your PC,
connect to the AIX system via:
ssh -X -C user@aixhostname
from your xterm on the PC. This tells your AIX system to actually
display all its graphical output on the X server of your PC [1].
So if you type 'xterm' in the ssh connection, you should get a
xterm window displayed on your PC, but the commands you enter in
this particular xterm are actually run on the AIX system. For this
to work you *don't* even have to have a running X (or KDE for that
matter) on the AIX system. Just the X applications you want to
run do have to be installed.
> Is there a SMIT command for configuring the SSH server?
I don't think so. Just edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config (or some-
thing like that) and restart the SSHd.
Regards,
Frank
[1] See the paragraph "X11 and TCP forwarding" from the ssh manpage
Stephen...@gmail.com
>
> You don't tell your X on the PC to talk to the X on the AIX
> system. It's the other way round. But lets take it step by step.
> After installing OpenSSH (see above) and starting X on your PC,
> connect to the AIX system via:
>
> ssh -X -C user@aixhostname
>
> from your xterm on the PC. This tells your AIX system to actually
> display all its graphical output on the X server of your PC [1].
> So if you type 'xterm' in the ssh connection, you should get a
> xterm window displayed on your PC, but the commands you enter in
> this particular xterm are actually run on the AIX system. For this
> to work you *don't* even have to have a running X (or KDE for that
> matter) on the AIX system. Just the X applications you want to
> run do have to be installed.
getting "error: cant open display" when I run "xclock" from the ssh
xterm window. Here are the steps I ran:
from the CYGWIN bash shell:
- export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0
- /usr/x11r6/bin/startxwin.sh
I get a white xterm window.
- ssh -X -C User...@AIX.IP.ADDR
- enter password
- get the AIX prompt!
- xclock
Error: cant open display
any ideas why I cant run GUI from the X window? xclock does work from
the X display on the PC before I run ssh. It also works at the console
in AIX safe mode.
thanks,
-Steve
Stephen...@gmail.com
ok. I changed the following in the sshd_config file:
X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
now the xclock application works!
only problem, it is slow, slow, slow. My AIX system is a 333Mhz 170
44P. The KDE shell is more than slow on this system. It can take over a
minute for a window to popup. Safe mode runs fine. Even the X11 stuff
in safe mode, like xclock and SMIT, runs without delay. The plan was
to offload the GUI stuff onto my PC.
I ran xclock a few times from my Windows client connected to the AIX
system. Takes 10 seconds each time for the clock to pop up!
-Steve
Frank Fegert
> ok. I changed the following in the sshd_config file:
> X11Forwarding yes
> X11DisplayOffset 10
>
> now the xclock application works!
Ok, you have xforwarding running, thats step one accomplished ;-)
> only problem, it is slow, slow, slow. My AIX system is a 333Mhz 170
> 44P. The KDE shell is more than slow on this system. It can take over a
> minute for a window to popup. Safe mode runs fine. Even the X11 stuff
> in safe mode, like xclock and SMIT, runs without delay. The plan was
> to offload the GUI stuff onto my PC.
>
> I ran xclock a few times from my Windows client connected to the AIX
> system. Takes 10 seconds each time for the clock to pop up!
Check your AIX system for unnecessary services. Cut down to the
bare minimum. No general rule here, depends on what you want to
do. Check what processes consume the most CPU time at the moment
using 'ps' or 'topas' or 'nmon' (which you might have to install
first). You can certainly loose the X, which is probably running
as a process named 'dt', as well as KDE.
Also make sure your network connection is good. Check with 'entstat
-d <interface>' to see if you're actually getting 100fdx from the
network.
Regards,
Frank