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xforward(local)                                                xforward(local)


NAME

       xforward - provide user-level X forwarding service


SYNOPSIS

       xforward [options]


OVERVIEW

       xforward provides a user-level X11 forwarding service which can be
       useful if there are IP network topologies which provide non-transitive
       routing (e.g. routers which implement policy packet screening).


OPTIONS

       -display display

              Specifies the destination display where the user wants
              applications to appear.  Without this argument, xforward will
              use the DISPLAY environment variable.

       -allow allowed-host1 [allowed-host2 ... allowed-host16]

              Only connections from allowed-hosts are permitted.  At least one
              allowed-host must be specified, and at most sixteen are allowed.


DESCRIPTION

       xforward will choose an unused port for the local display, and listen
       for connections on the local host at that port.  xforward informs the
       user which port to use as the local display, when xforward is first
       invoked.  When it receives a connection, it will create a confirmation
       pop-up on the destination.  If the user confirms the connection
       request, it will create a separate socket and connect it to the
       destination, and then commence data piping between the two connections.
       xforward can handle multiple simultaneous connections.

       If there is no activity on a connection for 90 minutes, the connection
       is closed. If the X server at the destination does not have access
       control enabled, then xforward will report an error.

       If a connection is closed by either end, any buffered data is drained
       to its destination before xforward will close the corresponding socket
       on the other end.


SEE ALSO

       socket(2), connect(2), listen(2), accept(2), bind(2), select(2)


BUGS

       Out-of-band data is ignored/thrown away.

       If the initial connection to the destination fails for some reason, the
       client who connected to the local-display will get an open and
       immediately closed TCP connection, which may cause indigestion to some
       programs which expect some sort of server response or an error code
       indicating failure to connect.


AUTHORS

       John Kohl, MIT Project Athena and Digital Equipment Corporation
       Modifications for X by Win Treese and Alec Wolman, Digital Equipment
       Corporation


DISTRIBUTION

       The file NOTICE in the xforward distribution specifies the terms for
       distributing xforward.  The current version of xforward can be found by
       anonymous FTP from crl.dec.com:/pub/DEC/xforward.tar.Z.

                                                               xforward(local)

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