I'm really scratching my head on this one. The server is running OpenSSH 5.1p1 on Solaris 9. The authentication is via PAM if that matters. # grep X11 sshd_config | sed '/^#/D' X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 X11UseLocalhost yes # Now I attach to my 'master' sshd and follow all children to look for any evidence of "DISPLAY": # truss -f -a -e -p 14923 2>&1 | grep DISPLAY I then fire up ssh -X from a client machine, login, and truss reports nothing. If I perform the EXACT same test against stock Solaris 9 sshd (also authenticating against PAM), DISPLAY shows up (in truss and in the shell) and X11 forwarding works fine. Any ideas?