microsoft / microsoft/wslg

Support X11 forwarding from a remote Linux system using the Windows-native OpenSSH client

Open
#992 1 comment 13 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

enhancement
Dominant language
C++
Stars
11.9k
Forks
429
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

Is your feature request related to a problem:

Currently, it is possible to use X11 forwarding, but you have to use the SSH client inside WSL. However, I prefer using the Windows port of OpenSSH directly, so instead of calling wsl -- ssh -X <host>, I can just do ssh -X <host>. This currently does not seem to work.

Describe the solution you'd like:
  1. I assume that the Windows port of OpenSSH would have to be adjusted so that it knows where to look for the local display server VM, so that it can set the correct $DISPLAY value. Alternatively, there should be a simple way to get the correct $DISPLAY value to configure manually before running ssh -X.

  2. I don't understand the architecture of WSLg enough to know if there are any modifications necessary on the WSLg side.

Describe alternatives you've considered:

Using SSH from inside WSL, which works well.

Additional context:

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing how the Windows-native OpenSSH client handles ssh -X and how WSLg exposes the local display server. Determine whether the required change belongs in the OpenSSH client, WSLg, or both; done means ssh -X <host> works from Windows without invoking WSL.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
desktop, operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.