By yelloideas
Getting the error “cannot connect to X server” when attempting to run graphical programs. I am using XQuartz locally on my mac, and ensured that xauth is installed on my droplet. I modified /etc/ssh/sshd_config to include “AllowTcpForwarding yes” and “X11UseLocalhost yes”
I get this error “cannot connect to X server” both thru the droplet console access screen, as well as when using “ssh -X user@ipaddress”
Am I missing something basic? Thanks a million!
This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.
You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!
These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.
Most servers are what we call “headless”, or without a GUI front-end.
Unless you install a front-end, you won’t be able to do X11 forwarding because there’s no XServer running to forward to your local machine.
Become a contributor for community
Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.
DigitalOcean Documentation
Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product.
Resources for startups and AI-native businesses
The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product.
The developer cloud
Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.
Start building today
From GPU-powered inference and Kubernetes to managed databases and storage, get everything you need to build, scale, and deploy intelligent applications.
