# 11.1, X11, MS Windows, Putty, VcXsrv



## Red52 (Aug 15, 2017)

Commissioning a FreeBSD 11.1 box starting with an empty HD. From MS Windows, using VcXsrv and PuTTY, am unable to start X11 programs.

When I login using PuTTY, VCXsrv already running, these two lines are in the lines displayed.
`/usr/local/bin/xauth: (stdin):1: bad display name "unix:10.0" in "remove" command
/usr/local/bin/xauth: (stdin):2: bad display name "unix:10.0" in "add" command`

From the env command
`DISPLAY=localhost:10.0`

Trying to run xclock gives
`PuTTY X11 proxy: Unsupported authorisation protocol
Error: Can't open display: localhost:10.0`

Other information that may help:
Trying to run xfce4 (uses a different setup on VcXsrv) gives some similar information.

A FreeBSD 10.3 box is used daily without problems. A FreeBSD virtual machine was upgraded from 11.0 to 11.1 and things work as expected.

Things behave the same from MS Windows 10 and 7 boxes.​
I am not making any progress on sorting this one out.  A solution would be good.  Direction for troubleshooting is also good.  Thanks.


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## SirDice (Aug 15, 2017)

Make sure X11 forwarding is turned on on the PuTTY session (it's off by default). Also make sure sshd_config(5) allows X11 forwarding.


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## Red52 (Aug 15, 2017)

Set X11Forwarding to yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.  No change.  (The man page thinks default is yes.)

Looking at my original post, it may not have been clear that all the FreeBSD instances are headless.  The one clean install of 11.1 has a problem with X11 forwarding that the others do not have.


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## SirDice (Aug 16, 2017)

Red52 said:


> it may not have been clear that all the FreeBSD instances are headless.


Doesn't matter, it's not relevant for X forwarding. The machine itself doesn't even have to have a working (or complete) Xorg. 

It's been a while since I last used X forwarding but I remember it was quite easy to get it working.


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## Red52 (Aug 16, 2017)

SirDice said:


> I remember it was quite easy to get it working.


It usually is.

Not having a better plan, another virtual machine was created and and a clean install of 11.1 was done.  It works as expected.

My working assumption is that problem is related to exactly how it was built up.  The problem machine will have the HD formatted and the install will be done again.  Some download time can be saved by keeping the /usr/ports/distfiles directory.

Thank you for the thoughts.
Robert


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## Red52 (Aug 18, 2017)

A clean install solved the problem.


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