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What are recommendations on speeding up X applications over local fast (gigabit) connections? (similar question for slow connections)

Currently I'm running over ssh -Y, which is fine, but I wonder if turning off compression could speed it up. If so, how do I turn off compression, encryption, and setup whatever you recommend:

  • without changing default sshd behaviour when modifying the configuration on the server side
  • preferably using command line options on client side
Community
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Grzegorz Wierzowiecki
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    I highly recommend: [Remote X Apps mini-HOWTO](http://zweije.home.xs4all.nl/xauth.html) in order to understand what parts X *ecosystem* consist and how to join those parts :). Now even whole window manager (fluxbox) is running on remote machine uses display (screen,mouse,keynoard) on local seat ("display") properly :). – Grzegorz Wierzowiecki Dec 16 '11 at 23:04

2 Answers2

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Partial answer regarding compression, from OpenSSH's man page ssh_config(5) (what you can configure using the -o option of ssh (i.e. ssh -oCompression=no) or ~/.ssh/config): 

 Compression
         Specifies whether to use compression.  The argument must be “yes”
         or “no”.  The default is “no”.

On the server side (sshd_config(5)),

 Compression
         Specifies whether compression is allowed, or delayed until the
         user has authenticated successfully.  The argument must be “yes”,
         “delayed”, or “no”.  The default is “delayed”.

compression can be forbidden, but not forced, so nothing to do here. But, as this is the default, it probably doesn't help you speed up anything.

(Depending on your network situation, I guess you could probably get a speedup by using something insecure, e.g. a plain X11 connection, DISPLAY=myothercomputer:0.0 etc, or maybe consider VNC, too.)

sr_
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    Additionally I needed : to setup `xauth` properly; follow [Remote X Apps mini-HOWTO](http://zweije.home.xs4all.nl/xauth.html) in order to understand what parts X *ecosystem* consist and how to join those parts :). Now even fluxbox running on remote machine works on local "display" properly :). – Grzegorz Wierzowiecki Dec 16 '11 at 23:02
  • Thanks a lot for the pointer, just added "understand this" to my todo list. – sr_ Dec 17 '11 at 09:44
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Regarding slow connection VNC is probably the fastest solution (and the most insecure). A better approach might be a KDE/GNOME remote desktop. That`s faster than an X11 tunnelled via SSH (even with compression).

Nils
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