Is X11 forwarding still implemented?

[Norman Feske]

Hi Jookia,

welcome to the mailing list!

On 11.06.2015 18:57, Jookia wrote:
> I looked at an old Genode demo from 2006 or so a while ago and found it had
> secure X11 forwarding. I'm very interested in this feature with virtual machines
> to get a nice environment for something like Turmvilla, though last time I
> checked the code it seemed this feature disappeared.

Indeed, we removed the code a long time ago. It was specific for the
paravirtualized OKLinux kernel that we used in the live-CD scenario back
then. The feature consisted of two parts: A custom Linux framebuffer
driver that we enhanced with a nitpicker-like interface, and a X11
client that watched all X11 window operations and propagated these
information to our driver. The driver, in turn, acted as a client of the
nitpicker GUI server.

The mechanism worked well enough to integrate one or multiple X11 window
systems into one nitpicker GUI. However, today, in the age of window
compositing, I would implement this feature differently. Instead of
relying on a guest-OS window manager to manage the X11 windows, I would
use a custom compositor that exports the buffers with the content of
each window to the Genode world - similar to how the X11 integration
works on Qubes OS. This approach has the benefit that all windows (of
both Linux applications and Genode applications) could be managed by a
single window manager running on Genode.

That said, right now, there is no tangible plan on our side to implement
this idea. Maybe you'd like to investigate it? ;-)

Cheers
Norman

-- 
Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
Genode Labs

http://www.genode-labs.com · http://genode.org

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