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I'm having trouble with the title on this one, please edit.

  • When users connect to a VM with VNC/NX/RDP/other-tla they get a persistent desktop in a window .
  • When they connect using ssh -X forwarding they get a local window managed by the local windo-manager that is not persistent.

    1: is there a way to run a program on the VM and have it managed locally AND have it persistent?
    2: can the client be on windows or OS-X?

ps: in this case the vm's are running Ubuntu

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2 Answers 2

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Check out xpra "an open-source multi-platform persistent remote display server and client for forwarding applications and desktop screens".

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  • 1
    xpra is exactly what I was looking for! it maintains the application in a virtual x-server and then uses a proxy-window-thingy to display it. May 5, 2010 at 17:36
  • more up-to-date fork
    – totaam
    Jan 2, 2012 at 9:07
  • xpra is so slow
    – Brent
    May 21, 2020 at 22:41
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I presume you mean "persistent" in that "I can disconnect and come back to my window later as if nothing had changed".

If that is the case, no you can't. X applications go to one X server only.

If you want persistence, you'll have to start a VNC/NX session and then run your applications in there.

Alternatively you could run things directly on the VM's console, if it is set up to run X, and export that through x11vnc; this page shows you how I did that for one customer.

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