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How to use X11 forwarding with PuTTY

Fresh7 days ago
Mar 15, 2026281290 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

I have a VM with RHEL 5 without an X server. My host has Windows 7. I need to connect to the VM and redirect the X11 output of the commands to my host. I know that if my host were a GNU/Linux machine it would be as easy as ssh -X . I'm using PuTTy to connect by SSH to the VM, I tried enabling X11 forward option in PuTTY config, but nothing happened. Have you ever done this? I'm quite advanced with GNU/Linux, but a newbie with this toy of Winbug$ 7.

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Fix for: How to use X11 forwarding with PuTTY

Low Risk

You need a X server on your windows workstation. A couple popular options include: vcxsrv Xming (non-free) X410 (non-free) You need your SSH server to have the set in the . It also needs at least the xauth binary/package, but you may want to install your distrobutions version of X11 base clients. In putty all you should have to do check the Enable X11 forewarding box under Connections\SSH\X11 in your putty connection. Putty documentation for X11 forwarding http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.…

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