How to configure X11 for Vagrant Box

Posted in: Technical Track

“Good artists copy, great artists steal” – Pablo Picasso

I am currently using Vagrant boxes from Mikael Sandström (oravirt) and unfortunately, it did not have X11 configured. Typically, using CLI is better for automation; however, there may come a time where it’s better to have visual.

This led to a journey to configure X11 for Vagrant box.

Configuration is two nodes RAC:

[email protected] MINGW64 /d/Vagrant/vagrant-vbox-rac (master)
$ vagrant status
Current machine states:
racnode-dc1-2             running (virtualbox)
racnode-dc1-1             running (virtualbox)
This environment represents multiple VMs. The VMs are all listed
above with their current state. For more information about a specific
VM, run `vagrant status NAME`.

Install xorg-x11-apps xauth xorg-x11-fonts* for all servers.

[[email protected] ~]$ sudo su -
Last login: Fri Mar 29 14:38:39 CET 2019 on pts/0
[[email protected] ~]# yum install xorg-x11-apps xauth xorg-x11-fonts*
====================================================================================================================================
 Package                                        Arch                 Version                         Repository                Size
====================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 xorg-x11-apps                                  x86_64               7.7-7.el7                       ol7_latest               307 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi                          noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               3.1 M
 xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi                           noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               2.8 M
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi                noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               1.1 M
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi                 noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               932 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-14-100dpi               noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               1.0 M
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-14-75dpi                noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               905 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-15-75dpi                noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               932 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-2-100dpi                noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               1.0 M
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-2-75dpi                 noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               901 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-9-100dpi                noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               1.1 M
 xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-9-75dpi                 noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               930 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-Type1                           noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               521 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-cyrillic                        noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               396 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-ethiopic                        noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               150 k
 xorg-x11-fonts-misc                            noarch               7.5-9.el7                       ol7_latest               5.8 M
Installing for dependencies:
 libfontenc                                     x86_64               1.1.3-3.el7                     ol7_latest                30 k
 libpng                                         x86_64               2:1.5.13-7.el7_2                ol7_latest               212 k
 libxkbfile                                     x86_64               1.0.9-3.el7                     ol7_latest                82 k
 ttmkfdir                                       x86_64               3.0.9-42.el7                    ol7_latest                47 k
 xorg-x11-font-utils                            x86_64               1:7.5-21.el7                    ol7_latest               104 k
Transaction Summary
====================================================================================================================================
Install  16 Packages (+5 Dependent packages)
Total download size: 22 M
Installed size: 25 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: Y
Installed:
  xorg-x11-apps.x86_64 0:7.7-7.el7                                 xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7                          xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7                xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-14-100dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-14-75dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7               xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-15-75dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-2-100dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7               xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-2-75dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-9-100dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7               xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-9-75dpi.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-Type1.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7                          xorg-x11-fonts-cyrillic.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
  xorg-x11-fonts-ethiopic.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7                       xorg-x11-fonts-misc.noarch 0:7.5-9.el7
Dependency Installed:
  libfontenc.x86_64 0:1.1.3-3.el7          libpng.x86_64 2:1.5.13-7.el7_2                   libxkbfile.x86_64 0:1.0.9-3.el7
  ttmkfdir.x86_64 0:3.0.9-42.el7           xorg-x11-font-utils.x86_64 1:7.5-21.el7
Complete!
[[email protected] ~]#

Configure X11 for all servers.

[[email protected] ~]# grep -i x11 /etc/ssh/sshd_config
X11Forwarding yes
#X11DisplayOffset 10
#X11UseLocalhost yes
#       X11Forwarding no
[[email protected] ~]# vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
[[email protected] ~]# grep -i x11 /etc/ssh/sshd_config
X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
X11UseLocalhost yes
#       X11Forwarding no
[[email protected] ~]# systemctl restart sshd.service
[[email protected] ~]#
[[email protected] ~]$ vi .bash_profile
[[email protected] ~]$ cat .bash_profile
# .bash_profile
# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
        . ~/.bashrc
fi
# User specific environment and startup programs
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/bin
export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:10.0
[[email protected] ~]$

Update Vagrantfile to add:

config.ssh.forward_agent = true
config.ssh.forward_x11 = true
Example:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Create VM's
Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config|
config.ssh.insert_key = false
config.ssh.forward_agent = true
config.ssh.forward_x11 = true
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reload vagrant and verify X11 configuration:

[email protected] MINGW64 /d/Vagrant/vagrant-vbox-rac (master)
$ vagrant reload
[email protected] MINGW64 /d/Vagrant/vagrant-vbox-rac (master)
$ vagrant ssh-config
Host racnode-dc1-2
  HostName 127.0.0.1
  User vagrant
  Port 2222 ***
  UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
  StrictHostKeyChecking no
  PasswordAuthentication no
  IdentityFile C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
  IdentitiesOnly yes
  LogLevel FATAL
  ForwardAgent yes ***
  ForwardX11 yes ***
Host racnode-dc1-1
  HostName 127.0.0.1
  User vagrant
  Port 2200 ***
  UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
  StrictHostKeyChecking no
  PasswordAuthentication no
  IdentityFile C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
  IdentitiesOnly yes
  LogLevel FATAL
  ForwardAgent yes ***
  ForwardX11 yes ***

Connect as Oracle to test X11 using the correct port for the host (racnode-dc1-2):

[email protected] MINGW64 /d/Vagrant/vagrant-vbox-rac (master)
$ ssh -XY -v [email protected] -p 2222 -i C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
OpenSSH_7.9p1, OpenSSL 1.1.1a  20 Nov 2018
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: Connecting to 127.0.0.1 [127.0.0.1] port 2222.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key type -1
debug1: identity file C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key-cert type -1
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_7.9
debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_7.4
debug1: match: OpenSSH_7.4 pat OpenSSH_7.0*,OpenSSH_7.1*,OpenSSH_7.2*,OpenSSH_7.3*,OpenSSH_7.4*,OpenSSH_7.5*,OpenSSH_7.6*,OpenSSH_7.7* compat 0x04000002
debug1: Authenticating to 127.0.0.1:2222 as 'oracle'
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent
debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received
debug1: kex: algorithm: curve25519-sha256
debug1: kex: host key algorithm: ecdsa-sha2-nistp256
debug1: kex: server->client cipher: [email protected] MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: kex: client->server cipher: [email protected] MAC: <implicit> compression: none
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY
debug1: Server host key: ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 SHA256:iwoyJMVHYg+jy4dIkKE2yEZTjUUayl89Q7qjbwqyhbQ
debug1: checking without port identifier
The authenticity of host '[127.0.0.1]:2222 ([127.0.0.1]:2222)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:iwoyJMVHYg+jy4dIkKE2yEZTjUUayl89Q7qjbwqyhbQ.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '[127.0.0.1]:2222' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
debug1: rekey after 134217728 blocks
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent
debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS
debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received
debug1: rekey after 134217728 blocks
debug1: Will attempt key: C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key  explicit
debug1: SSH2_MSG_EXT_INFO received
debug1: kex_input_ext_info: server-sig-algs=<rsa-sha2-256,rsa-sha2-512>
debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,password
debug1: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Trying private key: C:/Users/dinh/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,password
debug1: Next authentication method: password
[email protected]'s password:
debug1: Authentication succeeded (password).
Authenticated to 127.0.0.1 ([127.0.0.1]:2222).
debug1: channel 0: new [client-session]
debug1: Requesting [email protected]
debug1: Entering interactive session.
debug1: pledge: exec
debug1: client_input_global_request: rtype [email protected] want_reply 0
debug1: No xauth program.
Warning: No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding.
debug1: Requesting X11 forwarding with authentication spoofing.
Last login: Fri Mar 29 14:54:53 2019
----------------------------------------
Welcome to racnode-dc1-2
OracleLinux 7.3 x86_64
FQDN: racnode-dc1-2.internal.lab
IP:   10.0.2.15
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2640M CPU @ 2.80GHz
#CPU's:    2
Memory:    5709 MB
Kernel:    4.1.12-61.1.18.el7uek.x86_64
----------------------------------------
/usr/bin/xauth:  file /home/oracle/.Xauthority does not exist
[[email protected] ~]$ env|grep DISPLAY
DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:10.0
[[email protected] ~]$ xclock
debug1: client_input_channel_open: ctype x11 rchan 3 win 65536 max 16384
debug1: client_request_x11: request from 127.0.0.1 36236
debug1: channel 1: new [x11]
debug1: confirm x11
Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion

Here is a screen capture for running gridSetup.sh:

In conclusion, having X11 configured will provide options to use CLI for GUI for installing Oracle software.

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2 Comments. Leave new

Many thanks for detailed instructions. Very helpful.
I am having a problem when trying to start xclock.
My host operating system is Windows 10 and I start xvcsrv with ac disabled.
My guest operating system is Oracle Linux 7.8. This is output when trying to start xclock:
[[email protected] ~]$ xclock
debug1: client_input_channel_open: ctype x11 rchan 3 win 65536 max 16384
debug1: client_request_x11: request from 127.0.0.1 42014
Could not find ‘:’ in DISPLAY: needs-to-be-defined
debug1: failure x11
Error: Can’t open display: 127.0.0.1:10.0

Thanks!

Reply

Try Xming instead.

After you start Xming, review the log from system tray to find newAddress 172.16.7.1

export DISPLAY=172.16.7.1:0

Welcome to the Xming X Server
Vendor: Colin Harrison
Release: 6.9.0.31
FreeType2: 2.3.4
Contact: http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=156984

C:\Program Files (x86)\Xming\Xming.exe :0 -clipboard
-multiwindow

XdmcpRegisterConnection: newAddress 172.16.7.1

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