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X-Win32 How-To

The Computer Science department license’s X-Win32 for use on department machines. X-Win32 is an X11R6 compatible X Windows client for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4.0, 2000 and Windows XP. It supports multiple login mechanisims and can be combined with a Windows SSH client to support secure X11 sessions.

Installation

1. Download X-Win32 from here.

2. Contact CRF for a license key (CS affiliates only)

3. Run X-Win32.

3. You will be presented with the license dialog when you first run X-Win32.

— Select “Floating”. On the next dialog type the license key in the box and select “next” then “finish” to activate the program.

4. Go to X-Win32 configuration, in the Security Tab.

5. Click on “Add” and type: 127.0.0.1

6. Check “Access Control”

Now access control is enabled, which means nobody can connect to your X server without yoru permission.

Note: This copy of X-Win32 is restricted to the CS Department network and will not work elsewhere.

Note: We recommend using Xming, which is a X Windows System Server for Windows. You can check for more details and download it from here.

We provide instructions on how to use X-win32 with Putty or X-win32 with StarNetSSH. If you get an error using X-win32 with Putty, please follow the instruction below to use X-win32 with StarNetSSH.

X-win32 with Putty

  1. Run X-Win32 on your PC (All Programs -> X-Win32 8.0 -> X-Win32)
  2. If you haven’t already, download putty from here
  3. Run putty
  4. In putty, type: compute.cs.columbia.edu in the “Host Name” field.
  5. Click on “Connection” -> “SSH” -> “Tunnels”
  6. Check the box for “Enable X11 forwarding”
  7. Go back to “Session”
  8. Type: CS Compute Cluster into “Saved Sessions”
  9. Click “Save” to save it for subsequent use.
  10. Click: “Open” button. A new window should appear.
  11. Type in your username and password to log in
  12. Once you are logged into cluster, type: “xterm&” and you should see the Xterm window open. (Sometimes the Xterm window opens in the behind all the other windows.)
  13. Any X GUI program such as Matlab or Mathematica will open a new window if you run it from the command line.

X-win32 with StarNetSSH

StarNetSSH will solve the remote connection problem as shown below.
Xlib: connection to “localhost:12.0” refused by server
Xlib: Can not connect to a host on a restricted network

      1. Select Star->All Programs->Xwin32->X-Config->Manual->StarNetSSH
      2. Fill in the information as below:

Session Name: CLIC (or any name of your choice)

 

         Host: clic.cs.columbia.edu (or any CS host name you want to connect to)

 

         Login: CS Unix account login

 

         Command: xterm&

 

         Password: CS Unix account password

 

  1. Save your seesion and make a short cut for your desktop
  2. Click on the save icon on the desktop to get the first Xterm window