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I manage a large farm of Linux servers/desktops from a Windows desktop machine and would like to reduce the complexity of this task by not having to use xterm for X Forwarding. This is my setup:

  • I am using the excellent ConsoleZ for managing my ssh connections. I setup each tab by entering the following into the "Shell:" field in settings: C:\cygwin\bin\ssh.exe user@server1
  • When I want to run a graphical application from a Linux box I do the following:
    • run startxwin & from my local cygwin bash
    • Right click on the X icon and start "xterm"
    • run ssh -Y user@server1 in xterm
    • Then I can start xeyes or whatever from the Linux box

What I would like to do is not have the faff of having to open up xterm every time I want to run a graphical application on Cygwin/X. Ideally my "tabbed" connections in ConsoleZ would just allow this by using C:\cygwin\bin\ssh.exe -Y user@server1 in the "Shell:" field. If I do try this all I get is "Error: Can't open display:".

Any suggestions as to how I can make my life easier would be gratefully recieved (I can't use a Linux or Mac desktop machine even if I wanted to).

Daniel Ball
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  • Why can't you use a Linux or Mac desktop? It's extraordinarily painful to try to manage Linux systems from a Windows desktop, as you've already discovered. The gain in efficiency is just too great to let this state of affairs stand for long. – Michael Hampton Mar 02 '16 at 16:15
  • It's a work thing (Outlook, MS Office, etc...). Also, ConsoleZ works really well for me. I have shortcuts to all of my servers and I even have a colour scheme. It's really not that bad. Now I could run everything in Virtual Box which is what a lot of people do but I have multiple monitors and other stuff going on in Windows and I like to mix and match. Having everything sandboxed in a VM window is more painful than having a few xterms open. It's still not perfect though. – Daniel Ball Mar 02 '16 at 17:24

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