Transfer display of active windows remotely

[Magnus Kessler]

On Saturday 11 October 2008, Prasad H.L. wrote:
> This is what I have in mind.
>
> - Consider display :0 on machine 1 (m1) and display :0 on machine 2 (m2).
> - Let us say, a process 'p1' running under privileges of user 'u' opens a
> window on :0 of m1. - I do an 'ssh -X u at m1' in xterm on :0 of m2 and
> login to m1.
> - Now, from that xterm window, is there any way by which I can make that
> window of process 'p1' appear on :0 of m2.
>
> This kind of situation regularly occurs to me and some of my friends. We
> have multiple terminals at our disposal. On one terminal, I start some
> xterm which is, let us say, showing output of some process. I go to some
> other department in the institute and do an ssh to that terminal. Now, I
> have no way of seeing what is going on in that xterm. Well, this is a
> simple example, of course.

This particular use case, seeing the terminal output of a process on a 
different terminal, can be achieved quite easily using "screen" [0]. No 
support from X required at all.

In a first terminal (or even on the console without any X) run screen. Then 
run any non-graphical process in the screen session. When you move to a 
different computer, log into the first one through ssh and grab the screen 
session (screen -dr). You will see the output of the still running process 
there.

>
> Another example (though childish). Consider a case where I have a browser
> window with many tabs open in it, the window being displayed on :0 of m1.
> I would like to export it to :0 of m2 when I go and sit in front of m2.
> Before closing ssh on m2, I re-export the window back to :0 of m1 and
> then quit the ssh. Such a feature would be really great to have. Since,
> any way, currently the only dependency on the remote machine is that it
> should have an X server running, I believe this feature should be
> implementable if not already present.

Have you looked into NX [1]? NX can be considered the "screen" for running X 
sessions. I usually run an NX session on one machine (in the background, 
without any access to the graphics hardware), then connect to it using the 
nxclient software from either machine on the network. I can disconnect from 
a running session and pick it up later from somewhere else.

>
> With Regards,
> Prasad H. L.

Hope this helps. 

Best Regards,

Magnus Kessler

[0] http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/
[1] http://www.nomachine.com/
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