Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven!adm!smoke!brl.mil!moss
From: moss@brl.mil (Gary S. Moss (VLD/VMB) <moss>)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: setenv DISPLAY automatically
Message-ID: <14494@smoke.brl.mil>
Date: 16 Nov 90 18:54:48 GMT
References: <9011112317.AA21302@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> <1248@phcisa.UUCP>
Sender: news@smoke.brl.mil
Reply-To: moss@brl.mil
Organization: Ballistic Research Laboratory
Lines: 64

In article <1248@phcisa.UUCP>, frans@phcisa.UUCP (Francois Staes) writes:
|> A simple solution might be to use
|> 
|> rsh <HOST> -n /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display $DISPLAY
|> 
|> This causes the DISPLAY variable to contain the right value, even in the
|> child process of the xterm. (See man page of xterm)
|> 
|> One problem left: you have to change the initial value of your DISPLAY
|> variable from unix:0 to <your_hostname>:0. Is there any way that
|> xinit sets the initial DISPLAY variable to <hostname>:0 instead of unix:0 ?
|> Or does this cause any performance problems ?

I have a version of xrsh that I've hacked just a little which is nice to use
for remote execution of X clients.  Not only does it set up the DISPLAY
variable automatically, but it runs xhost, adds X stuff to your path and
sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH in case you are using shared libraries.  Using xrsh,
the above line would turn into the following:

xrsh <HOST> xterm

Below is the xrsh, the comment is not mine, it came with it, and you may
need to change the list of directories that it appends to PATH:

-Gary

#! /bin/sh
#
# start an X11 process on another host
#
# Date: 8 Dec 88 06:29:34 GMT
# From: Chris Torek <chris@mimsy.umd.edu>
# rsh $host -n "setenv DISPLAY $DISPLAY; exec $@ </dev/null >&/dev/null"
#
# An improved version:
# rXcmd (suggested by John Robinson, jr@bbn.com)
#       (generalized for sh,ksh by Keith Boyer, keith@cis.ohio-state.edu)
#
# but they put the rcmd in ()'s which left zombies again.  This
# script combines the best of both.

case $# in
[01])  echo "Usage: $0 host x-cmd [args...]";;
*)
	case $SHELL in
	*csh*)  host="$1"; shift
		xhost "$host" > /dev/null
		rsh "$host" -n \
			"setenv TERM xterm; setenv DISPLAY `hostname`:0; \
			exec $* </dev/null >& /dev/null" &
		;;
	*sh)
		host="$1"; shift
		xhost "$host" > /dev/null
		rsh "$host" -n \
			"TERM=xterm export TERM; \
			DISPLAY=`hostname`:0 export DISPLAY; \
			LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/X11/lib export LD_LIBRARY_PATH; \
			PATH=\$PATH:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/local/bin; \			export PATH; \
			exec $* < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1" &
		;;
	esac
	;;
esac