SSHFS doesn't honor ForwardX11 settings in ~/.ssh/config

Bug #83631 reported by Brian Pitts
10
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
sshfs-fuse (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

SSHFS doesn't honor ForwardX11 settings in ~/.ssh/config. This is a problem when using ControlMaster. If the initial connection didn't enable X forwarding, no subsequent connections will be able to use it.

If I have the following host configuration.

Host mybox
        Hostname mybox.ahost.com
        User brian
        ForwardX11 yes
        ForwardX11Trusted yes

Host *
        ControlMaster auto
        ControlPath ~/.ssh/socket-%r@%h:%p

And establish my first ssh connection to mybox with

sshfs mybox:/home/brian /media/mybox

This mounts the folder over ssh and creates ~/.<email address hidden>:22

All subsequent ssh connections to mybox will reuse the existing connection. If try to launch an application that requires X

ssh -f mybox mozilla-thunderbird

it will fail, in this case with the error Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

The workaround is to either disable ControlMaster for certain hosts or establish a normal ssh connection before using sshfs.

Tags: precise
Áron Sisak (asisak)
Changed in sshfs-fuse:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Revision history for this message
Connor Imes (ckimes) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

Changed in sshfs-fuse:
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Brian Pitts (bpitts) wrote :

This is still an issue in 8.10

Revision history for this message
Connor Imes (ckimes) wrote :

Thank you for your response, I was finally able to reproduce this as well, though I see a little different. I think the specific error output just depends on the remote host. My remote server is running Solaris:

emacs: Cannot connect to X server c-<my ip>.hsd1.pa.comcast.net:0.
Check the DISPLAY environment variable or use `-d'.
Also use the `xhost' program to verify that it is set to permit
connections from your machine.

Changed in sshfs-fuse:
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek) wrote :

This bug report has been forwarded to the developer at as described at http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html

Changed in sshfs-fuse (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Ken Sharp (kennybobs) wrote :

Well this still occurs in 12.04.3.

Ken Sharp (kennybobs)
tags: added: precise
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.