Error: cannot open display: localhost:0.0 - trying to open Firefox from CentOS 6.2 64bit and display on Win7

Question

I am on a Windows7 machine and I'm trying to get firefox to open on the centOS machine, but be displayed on my current screen. When typing firefox in terminal, I am getting the following error:

Error: cannot open display: localhost:0.0

To setup the display I used the command

$ export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0

Some site suggested using the following, but it didn't work either:

$ export DISPLAY=:0.0

I am using PuTTY and I have the Enable X11 forwarding check box checked and XMing is running on Windows. Additionally, the sshd_config on centOS file seems to be setup properly as well:

$ cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config |grep -i x11
#X11Forwarding no
X11Forwarding yes
#X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost yes

I've looked over numerous pages and searched StackOverflow as well, but none have managed to help me in any way. Thank you in advance.

This question might be more suitable at http://superuser.com/. Besides, in Xming there is `XLaunch` utility, which allows to connect to remote server and launch an application without explicitly using PuTTY and such. Have you tried it? Does it works? — aland, Sep 10 '12 at 17:16
try it without setting the DISPLAY variable... you shouldn't actually need that — Scott, Sep 10 '12 at 17:33
@aland I've looked on the Internet to see what the XLaunch Utility is, I don't know what you mean when you say I should try to launch the application without PuTTY. I just noticed that `XMing` has a `Command Processor`, but I don't know how to use it. - Also, I'm not too sure how to migrate my question. — SaiyanGirl, Sep 10 '12 at 17:37
@scott654 When I try that, I get the following: `Error: no display specified`. All the suggestions on the Internet say that I should set the display variable to fix that error, but that doesn't do anything for me :( — SaiyanGirl, Sep 10 '12 at 17:38
@Dana XLaunch is part of XMing distribution, it is a GUI for configuring XMing. By the way, you should not specify DISPLAY variable manually, PuTTY should do that for you. Most likely for remote server you X is not :0.0, but something else (usually :10.0); although your XMing is considering itself to be :0.0, PuTTY does port-forwarding magic to hide that, since :0.0 might be alredy taken by other user or default X or smth. else, so it autimatically finds some available X display number and uses it. — aland, Sep 10 '12 at 17:52
@Dana Only moderators can migrate questions, you should just flag your question as belonging to SU — aland, Sep 10 '12 at 17:58

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 10 '12 at 18:11

16

So, it turns out that X11 wasn't actually installed on the centOS. There didn't seem to be any indication anywhere of it not being installed. I did the following command and now firefox opens:

yum groupinstall 'X Window System'

Hope this answer will help others that are confused :)

answered Sep 10 '12 at 18:11

SaiyanGirl

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Thank you very much. This solved my problem too. I have been searching all over the net to find this solution. Now I only need gvim to find the fonts and I'm ready to go... – some Oct 20 '12 at 22:20
1

... and that was solved by installing the X11 fonts. (in Fedora: `yum search fonts` to get a list of fonts, and then install relevant X11 fonts) – some Oct 20 '12 at 22:29
I have the same problem but I dont have ROOT right. Any solution in such case ? – SAAD Aug 03 '14 at 12:56

Aleks · Answer 2 · 2013-03-11T11:09:22.523

5

I faced this issue once and was able to resolve it by fixing of my /etc/hosts. It just was unable to resolve localhost name... Details are here: http://itvictories.com/node/6

In fact, there is 99% that error related to /etc/hosts file

X server just unable to resolve localhost and all consequent actions just fails.

Please be sure that you have a record like

127.0.0.1 localhost

in your /etc/hosts file.

edited Mar 11 '13 at 11:09

answered Mar 06 '13 at 17:03

Aleks

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Can you post the answer here instead of a link pointing to it? – cheesemacfly Mar 06 '13 at 17:24
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The link does not load for me =/. I receive an internal server error. Could you post your answer here, please? – SaiyanGirl Mar 06 '13 at 21:15
The link is broken. I have 127.0.0.1 localhost in my /etc/hosts still not working. – jturi Jun 25 '18 at 20:24
In my case also, I have 127.0.0.1 localhost in my /etc/hosts still not working. – Anshul Singhal Apr 24 '21 at 03:17

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '18 at 20:38

3

I had this error message:

Error: Can't open display: localhost:13.0

This fixed it for me:

export DISPLAY="localhost:10.0"

You can use this too:

export DISPLAY="127.0.0.1:10.0"

answered Jun 25 '18 at 20:38

jturi

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>xauth list This will print the authorization entries for all the displays. Check what number to use. – shubham agarwal Jun 25 '20 at 15:07
export DISPLAY="localhost:10.0" this worked for me. Thank you so much. Centos 8 accessing via MobaXTerm v21.2 X11 tab with Dwm <--- i think. – carrabino Aug 08 '21 at 15:22

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 24 '19 at 10:46

before start make sure of installation:

yum install -y xorg-x11-server-Xorg xorg-x11-xauth xorg-x11-apps

start xming or cygwin
make connection with X11 forwarding (in putty don't forget to set localhost:0.0 for X display location)
edit sshd.cong and restart

     cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config | grep X
                             X11Forwarding yes
                             X11DisplayOffset 10
AddressFamily inet

Without the X11 forwarding, you are subjected to the X11 SECURITY and then you must: authorize the remote server to make a connection with the local X Server using a method (for instance, the xhost command) set the display environment variable to redirect the output to the X server of your local computer. In this example: 192.168.2.223 is the IP of the server 192.168.2.2 is the IP of the local computer where the x server is installed. localhost can also be used.

blablaco@blablaco01 ~
$ xhost 192.168.2.223
192.168.2.223 being added to access control list

blablaco@blablaco01 ~
$ ssh -l root 192.168.2.223
root@192.168.2.223s password:
Last login: Sat May 22 18:59:04 2010 from etcetc
[root@oel5u5 ~]# export DISPLAY=192.168.2.2:0.0
[root@oel5u5 ~]# echo $DISPLAY
192.168.2.2:0.0
[root@oel5u5 ~]# xclock&

Then the xclock application must launch.

Check it on putty or mobaxterm and don't check in remote desktop Manager software. Be careful for user that sudo in.

user3627034 · Answer 5 · 2018-11-04T19:06:33.227

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In my case the issue was caused due to mismatch in .Xauthority file. Which initially showed up with "Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1" error and then "Error: cannot open display: :0.0" afterwards

Regenerating the .Xauthorityfile from the user under which I am running the vncserver and resetting the password with a restart of the vnc service and dbus service fixed the issue for me.

edited Nov 04 '18 at 19:06

answered Nov 04 '18 at 08:54

user3627034

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Error: cannot open display: localhost:0.0 - trying to open Firefox from CentOS 6.2 64bit and display on Win7

5 Answers5