Re: Failed to start new browser session: Error while launching browser on session null

[ken <gebser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/29/2011 05:45 AM John Hodrien wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Mar 2011, ken wrote:
> 
>> Like the error says, you need to specify the display.  I.e., on the
>> remote machine you must set the environmental variable "DISPLAY"...
>> something like
>>
>> (export DISPLAY=192.168.1.42:0.0 & firefox)
>>
>> Though this may work, this may well reveal another, different error, one
>> having to do generally with permissions.  But we'll take them one at a time.
> 
> Do *not* follow this advice.  It's bad practice, insecure, and actually more
> work than being secure, and more likely not to work.  Plenty of X servers are
> configured to not listen on your network interface for example.
> 
> ssh -X / -Y is your friend, as others have suggested.
> 
> jh

John,

Whether or not it's "more work" is highly subjective.  And it's not
inherently insecure; people often *make* it insecure by lazily setting
permissions to allow *any* server to have access.  Even ssh can be
insecure if it's not configured properly.

More importantly, I was replying to what the OP posted.  The error
message pointed to the DISPLAY variable not being set.  My reply and
response were to that situation.  While using ssh tunneling is a great
solution in a lot of situations (I've used it myself quite a bit), and
it might be a good method for the OP to use, perhaps even in the OP's
current situation.  Or perhaps s/he's under restrictions you and I
aren't privy to which necessitate him/her using something else than what
we'd first recommend.  So, me, I prefer to work the problem as
presented.  Others can certainly use other methods.


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