Description of problem: After connecting to a remote machine, running Red Hat Linux 9, via ssh and setting X11 to display on the local machine and running redhat-config-xfree86 the desktop preview in the display tab reflects the local machine not the remote. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): redhat-config-xfree86-0.7.3-2 How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. On your local machine execute xhost +remote. (Where remote is the IP address or host name of the machine you will be connecting to.) 2. Make an ssh connection to the remote machine. [ssh remote] 3. Set your display variable to the local machine. [export DISPLAY=localhost:0] (Where local host is the system you originally logged into. 4. Observe the preview screen of the desktop in the display tab and you will notice that it is the desktop of the local system not the remote system's desktop. However, the video card and monitor information are for the remote system. Actual results: You see the local system's desktop. Expected results: I would expect to see a preview of the remote system's desktop or nothing at all. Additional info:
>After connecting to a remote machine, running Red Hat Linux 9, via ssh and >setting X11 to display on the local machine Out of the box, with zero configuration, ssh'ing to a remote host, and running an X11 application should work, because X11 forwarding is enabled by default. This is not really relevant to the bug report, but I thought you might find that useful. >1. On your local machine execute xhost +remote. (Where remote is the IP >address or host name of the machine you will be connecting to.) This is both a security hole, and totally unnecessary. Using X11 apps remotely via ssh works out of the box as indicated above with no end user configuration. Just open an xterm, ssh to the remote host, and run the X application without using xhost or xauth. Assuming the remote host does not disable X11 forwarding, it will "just work". >4. Observe the preview screen of the desktop in the display tab and you will >notice that it is the desktop of the local system not the remote system's >desktop. Precicely, and that is what would be expected, since it will see your LOCAL display, and that's what it will use. >However, the video card and monitor information are for the remote >system. Because it is probing the hardware connected to the system it is running on, which means it is going to see the remote video hardware. redhat-config-xfree86 is not intended to be used over a network to my knowledge, and if it is ran over a network, you will almost definitely encounter all kinds of unforseen problems. I'll leave this open for Brent to comment on and/or close as NOTABUG or whatever.
redhat-config-xfree86 should work ok over a network for creating a config file for the remote machine, but as Mike said the xhost stuff is unnecessary and potentially dangerous. As for the preview screen, I would expect it to grab that preview screen from the local machine. Surely the user wouldn't expect the program to grab the screen of the remote machine...it's possible that X isn't running on the remote machine therefore there would be nothing to grab. It's also possible that another user is logged in on the remote machine and grabbing a preview of his desktop would be very strange from a security point of view. Closing as 'notabug'.