BaRC

Using Cygwin/X for X Windows on Barra or Hebrides

Using X Windows on barra or hebrides

This guide is intended for those wishing to connect to barra with X-windows support from a Windows computer.

If you are connecting remotely, you will need to setup a VPN connection via the Cisco VPN client.
To test that you can connect to barra via the VPN connection, do the following:

Download Putty, or a SSH client to a location on your desktop.
Input barra.wi.mit.edu as the hostname, and log in.
See Connecting to barra or hebrides and transferring files for details of these two steps.

Cygwin Installation:

Download the Cygwin/X setup executable to anywhere on your desktop, and launch the setup program (setup.exe).

Click Next

Click the Install from Internet option, and click Next

Choose an install directory. Cygwin will treat this as the root

Choose a temporary installation file download directory

Click Next

Select an ftp server (.com or .edu)

You should then see a window displaying several packages that you may install. Click the View button, until you see Full to the right. This will display all packages alphabetically
Select packages by clicking the circular arrow image until you see a set of numbers next to the image. (This is the package version number.)

To use X-windows for Barra, the following packages are required (note: clicking the packages may install other required packages):

openssh: The OpenSSH server and client programs
xorg-x11-base: Cygwin/X Base

If you plan on using cygwin to emulate a unix like environment, the following is a recommended list of packages

more	page through text one screenful at a time
less	similar to more, but allows backward paging, and word highlighting
nedit	text editor, very good for highlighting keywords in programs
tcsh	shell type "C shell with file name completion and command line editing"
wget	retrieve files via url addresses
emacs/xemacs	another text editor, xemacs has keyword highlighting features

Finally,

Connecting to Barra

Click on the cygwin link on your desktop. You should see a shell appear. You can now enter basic unix commands on your windows PC!

Type startx, and press the enter key

A shell should pop up (Your previous shell will have the verbose output of the xwindows server processes)

Type "ssh -Xl username barra.wi.mit.edu" into the new shell

Enter your password, and you're done.

Test the xwindows setup by opening up an xterm window (xterm &)

Disconnecting

type logout in all the shells including the original shell.

Troubleshooting

If you see xterm Xt error: Can't open display: or a similar error, make sure you typed ssh -Xl username barra.wi.mit.edu
If you still can not connect:

Retrieve your IP address by going to windows -> Run.
Type command. This should pop up a dos shell window.
Type ipconfig. If you have VPN working right, you will see the DNS Suffix . : wi.mit.edu, the IP address should be below this
Write down the IP Address : #.#.#.#
after executing startx in the popup shell type:

xhost +
ssh -l username barra.wi.mit.edu
setenv DISPLAY IP:0.0 (where IP is your IP address)
Try opening up xterm again