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Every time I initiate an ssh connection from my Mac to a Linux (Debian) I do get this warning:

No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding.

This also happens for tools that are using ssh, like git or mercurial.

I just want to make a local change to my system in order to prevent this from appearing.

Note: I do have X11 server (XQuartz 2.7.3 (xorg-server 1.12.4)) on my Mac OS X (10.8.1) and it is working properly, I can successfully start clock locally or remotely.

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3
  • 1
    What command are you using to ssh? Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 14:43
  • @DerfK just ssh hostname but in my ~/.ssh/config I added ForwardX11 yes some time ago. Still this is something that I do want to have there. Commented Aug 30, 2012 at 14:45
  • Using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (August 2017) I give up. Bottom line is that even though it gives the error, it works. I use ssh -Y hostname from Linux, and ssh -x hostname when using OpenSSH on Windows. Commented Aug 31, 2017 at 5:55

12 Answers 12

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122

None of the posted solutions worked for me. My client (desktop) system is running macOS 10.12.5 (Sierra). I added -v to the options for the ssh command and it told me,

debug1: No xauth program.

which means it doesn't have a correct path to the xauth program. (On this version of macOS the path to xauth is nonstandard.) The solution was to add this line to /etc/ssh/ssh_config (may be /etc/ssh/config in some setups) or in ~/.ssh/config (if you don't have admin rights):

XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth

Now the warning message is gone.

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  • 23
    OMG. Years I’ve been trying to find a solution, and this worked. Years I say! Note that I did this by adding that line under the Host * entry in my ~/.ssh/config file instead of editing /etc/ssh/ssh_config. The only documentation I found for this was in man sshd_config. Commented Jul 10, 2017 at 6:07
  • This worked for me as well. I understand that at the moment XQuartz is not being well maintained due to lack of funding. So I think porting issues like this are actually fewer than I would expect. Commented Jul 23, 2017 at 17:09
  • On High Sierra; this is the one that worked for me too. Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 23:52
  • 2
    Note you may experience this issue even when your shell can find xauth in your PATH! I guess the ssh client is sanitizing your PATH for security reasons? Commented May 24, 2018 at 15:55
  • 2
    This solution didn't work for me. I'm using Cygwin on Win7. Adding "XAuthLocation /usr/bin/xauth", either under the "Host *" entry, or before that line, in ~/.ssh/config , made no difference. Commented Jan 24, 2019 at 21:22
27

Found the cause, my ~/.ssh/config was incomplete, you need both:

Host * ForwardAgent yes ForwardX11 yes

My mistake was that I included only the ForwardX11 option.

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  • 20
    I'm not sure why this is needed/relevant. ForwardAgent is used to allow keys cached in ssh-agent to pass through multiple nested SSH connections. It should not have any relevance to X11. And fwiw, according to some, it's not a good idea security-wise: heipei.github.io/2015/02/26/… Commented Sep 24, 2015 at 21:08
  • 4
    That does not sound right, what helps is to actually turn off X11 forwarding or fix the xauth configuration to set it up. It is not related to ssh agents. Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 6:42
  • 2
    This solution did not work for me. Commented Jan 24, 2019 at 21:23
  • Is this ~/.ssh/config on the macOS client or the Linux server? I have these files on neither. I do have a similar /etc/ssh/sshd_config Commented Sep 11, 2019 at 1:30
  • 2
    On Mac OS, I also had to add "XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth" Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 20:25
23

Letting Ubuntu bash on Windows 10 run ssh -X to get a GUI environment on a remote server

  • First

Install all the following. On Window, install Xming. On Ubuntu bash, use sudo apt install to install ssh xauth xorg.

sudo apt install ssh xauth xorg
  • Second

Go to the folder contains ssh_config file, mine is /etc/ssh.

  • Third

Edit ssh_config as administrator(USE sudo). Inside ssh_config, remove the hash # in the lines ForwardAgent, ForwardX11, ForwardX11Trusted, and set the corresponding arguments to yes.

# /etc/ssh/ssh_config Host * ForwardAgent yes ForwardX11 yes ForwardX11Trusted yes
  • Forth

In ssh_config file, remove the front hash # before Port 22 and Protocol 2, and also append a new line at the end of the file to state the xauth file location, XauthLocation /usr/bin/xauth, remember write your own path of xauth file.

# /etc/ssh/ssh_config # IdentifyFile ... Port 22 Protocol 2 # Cipher 3des # ... # ... ... ... GSSAPIDelegateCredentials no XauthLocation /usr/bin/xauth
  • Fifth

Now since we are done editing ssh_config file, save it when we leave the editor. Now go to folder ~ or $HOME, append export DISPLAY=localhost:0 to your .bashrc file and save it.

# ~/.bashrc ... ... export DISPLAY=localhost:0
  • Last

We are almost done. Restart your bash shell, open your Xming program and use ssh -X yourusername@yourhost. Then enjoy the GUI environment.

ssh -X yourusername@yourhost

The problem is also in Ubuntu subsystem on Windows, and the link is at

https://gist.github.com/DestinyOne/f236f71b9cdecd349507dfe90ebae776

Note: the linked text includes 2 typos (XauthLocaion instead of XauthLocation)

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  • 1
    The question isn't about Windows. Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 7:53
  • On MacOS it is almost the same, the differences are instead of Xming, we should get XQuartz, and the ssh_config file is in a different location, mine is /private/etc/ssh. Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 15:45
  • And also, the last line for ssh_config will be: XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth Commented Sep 22, 2017 at 15:58
  • 2
    Edit needed: XauthLocaion -> XauthLocation (that edit is too small for me to make). Commented Mar 3, 2018 at 4:05
  • 1
    Besides installing xming, ssh,xauth, and xorg (step 1), the only thing needed for me was export DISPLAY=localhost:0 Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 3:35
14

As noted, it seems that xauth on OS X Yosemite has regressed to an old version that doesn't work with XQuartz's $DISPLAY setting:

% xauth -V 1.0.9 % xauth generate $DISPLAY . xauth: (argv):1: bad display name "/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd(...)/org.macosforge.xquartz:0" in "add" command
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4
  • 1
    I tested the same lines on OS X 10.11, and I do not get any error. Still same version of XQuartz. Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 11:48
  • 2
    @guest Your xauth generate $DISPLAY . command worked on my Mac OS X High Sierra (10.13), and it solved my No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding. pb. Commented Aug 10, 2018 at 16:13
  • 1
    This isn't just OS X specific - running xauth generate :0 made the warning disappear on my WSL/Debian client. Commented May 11, 2020 at 20:56
  • @sandyscott I use wsl2 with Debian and wanted the linux gui apps on windows 11, but I probably made the mistake to use debian instead of ubuntu. So maybe wsl --update was the bad guy. Now I want to revert to not get the warning the OP has which is annoying. Commented Apr 8, 2022 at 19:53
5

This started happening to me after moving my Cygwin installation from one PC to another. The issue seemed to be the hostname change: the magic cookie no longer corresponded to the hostname of the new PC.

Running

touch ~/.Xauthority xauth add :0 . `mcookie`

on the local Cygwin installation fixed the problem for me -- xauth list now listed a magic cookie associated with the correct hostname of the new PC, and the warning stopped appearing.

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3
  • 1
    This is the only one that worked for me! I'd just like to add that the command didn't work at first try for me, I was getting a .../.Xauthority does not exist error. To fix it I simply had to create an empty file using touch .Xauthority in my home folder, and then re-run the above xauth command again. Commented Mar 26, 2020 at 9:58
  • I did have an existing ~/.Xauthority file from tinkering around trying to find the solution, thanks for letting me know it's essential! Commented Apr 11, 2020 at 20:27
  • This solution worked for me. Host: Windows 11, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2), Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop. Commented Sep 15, 2023 at 23:05
4

I would add this as a comment, but I don't have enough rep. Adding one more line to sorin's solution worked for me.

On the client machine, edit your ssh config file with vim ~/.ssh/config

Then add these lines to it:

Host * ForwardAgent yes ForwardX11 yes XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth

You can double check your xauth location with:

which xauth
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2
  • Not sure if this would really work because xauth location would be different on each remote machine. Yours looks like a MacOS one, but Linux has it in different location. I mostly started to disable ForwardX11 completly because I almost never user it. Commented Feb 23, 2019 at 8:23
  • @sorin maybe he updated the question because he explains how to find the right location in the answer. BTW: This works for me! Commented Nov 28, 2019 at 12:18
2

There is a bug in MacOS at the moment. I came across this too. The fix for me involved adding the following to my .bash_profile

dispdir=`dirname $DISPLAY` dispfile=`basename $DISPLAY` dispnew="$dispdir/:0" if [ -e $DISPLAY -a "$dispfile" = "org.x:0" ]; then mv $DISPLAY $dispnew fi export DISPLAY=$dispnew

Essentially the name for the file pipe associated with your X root can't be handled correctly, and thus needs correction. :-)

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2
  • I doubt this would solve the error in GUI OS X apps, like SourceTree. Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 11:49
  • Confirming it does work on Sierra for running emacs using X - as the Mac is the server. this should work broadly in cases where the client is on a remote machine Commented Dec 18, 2016 at 16:24
2

i just removed ~/.Xauthority (destination machine) from my root folder and ssh -X 192.168.123.1 again and ik worked.

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1
  • I can confirm this is an answer on Mac OS Sierra 10.12.4. Removing ~/.Xauthority on SSH server does the trick: ~$ mv ~/.Xauthority ~/.Xauthority.bak A new magic cookie was automatically put back in ~/.Xauthority once I logged in again. No Bash scripting is required at all. Commented May 31, 2017 at 23:45
2

Including

XAuthLocation /opt/local/bin/xauth in ~/.ssh/config

in my macOS Sierra 10.12.6 worked for me. A small change from answer 7).

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1

In my case it was the problem of .Xauthority containing the Magic cookie not forwarded, Fabby on http://askubuntu.com/questions/571116/ recommends on 2014-11-14 to add this line at the end of the .bashrc or . profile to allow forwarding of xauth keys between users when calling su:

export $(dbus-launch)

I added also previously:

export XAUTHORITY=~/.Xauthority

to ensure remote called with ssh -X ̍@ will find it.

In my case .Xauthority is a symlink to original user /home//.Xauthority I su from... 

 cd /home/<child_user>;ln -sf /home/<parent_user>/.Xauthority .xAuthority

with correct rights: 

 sudo chown <parent_user> /home/<parent_user>/.profile chmod a+rw /home/<parent_user>/.profile

so it is accessible to and to . will be able to trigger apps on and display X-windowed result on its local screen throughout proxy account !

TIP : Check xauth list...if reflects magic cookie on .

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1

My goal was get quiet ssh-based command line login t Linux hosts from my macOS client. E.g. I didn't want to see any banners or messages. Just setup cert-based login so I could type an alias at the and get a prompt on the host machine. To accomplish that I did the following:

  • On the Debian 10 Linux host I touched (e.g. created) ~/.hushlogin

  • However, on macOS Catalina ssh client I was getting the message:

    No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding.

After confirming xauth binary location, I addedXAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth to /etc/ssh/sshd_config on the macOS client, but that did not work for me when I used this command:

ssh -Y user@debian10

In the final analysis @ssanch's answer did work for me. But before I discovered that solution I stumbled on a workaround that might help some people:

ssh -Yy user@host

Adding lowercase -y flag to the ssh command line causes it to send it's log output to syslog instead of stderr, and that allows for the desired quiet login also.

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0

For anyone having the same trouble, I've tested all the other answers, nothing worked for me: launch xterm by ssh from local Windows 10 to Linux Debian 10 buster remote box.

The way worked for me is

  1. Install Xming.exe under Windows and run it,

  2. Then under Windows using PowerShell:

    $env:DISPLAY="localhost:0" ssh.exe -Y [email protected]

    instead of ssh.exe -X [email protected].

$env:DISPLAY is mandatory. Shell environment variable $DISPLAY is automatically set by xauth or similar.

I've reported the detail on stackoverflow.

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