How to Enable X11 Forwarding on Amazon Linux

Amazon Linux Enable X11 Forwarding

X11 Forwarding can be configured on Amazon Linux instance created from AMI version 2017.09.01 with following steps. These may work with recent version of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs).

Step 1: Verify or install  required X11 packages

List installed X11 packages with following command.

$ sudo yum list installed '*X11*'

Installed Packages
libX11.x86_64
libX11-common.x86_64
xorg-x11-font-utils.x86_64
xorg-x11-fonts-Type1.noarch

It would be required to install package xorg-x11-xauth.x86_64 which can be installed with following command.

$ sudo yum install xorg-x11-xauth.x86_64 -y

Once installed exit and reconnect SSH session. You may notice following information upon reconnecting.

/usr/bin/xauth: creating new authority file /home/ec2-user/.Xauthority

Display can now be forwarded to an X11 Client from Amazon Linux.

Additional step are for configuring PuTTY with Xming client on Windows.

Step 2: Install Xming Client for Windows

Install Xming program for Windows that can be downloaded from Xming Site or searching on the internet.

Once installed, make sure server is started after the installation that can normally be seen in Taskbar notification area as Xming Server:0.0

Xming display settings are configured as following.

xming

Step 3: Configure PuTTY to enable X11 forwarding

PuTTY can be utilized to connect to Amazon Linux from Windows environment. PuTTY’s SSH session can be configured to enable X11 forwarding as shown in the following image.

putty-x11-forwarding

Now once connected to the Amazon Linux instance utilizing SSH protocol through PuTTY, display would be forwarded to the local Windows machine.

How to Upgrade Java on Amazon Linux

Amazon Linux Java Upgrade

Java version on Amazon Linux instance created from AMI version 2017.09.01 can be upgraded with following steps. These may work with recent version of Amazon Machine Images (AMIs).

Step 1: Copy the required version of Java to Amazon Linux

For this exercise we would be upgrading to Oracle Java 8 update 121 utilizing package jdk-8u121-linux-x64.rpm which can be downloaded from Oracle Downloads.

Once downloaded this can be copied to the Amazon Linux instance with Secure Copy Protocol (SCP).

Step 2: Remove currently installed Java version

List current Java version information with following command.

$ java -version
java version "1.7.0_161"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (amzn-2.6.12.0.75.amzn1-x86_64 u161-b00)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.161-b00, mixed mode)

List currently installed Java package.

$ sudo yum list installed '*java*'

Remove currently installed Java package.

$ sudo yum remove java-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64 -y

Verify Java is uninstalled.

$ java -version
-bash: /usr/bin/java: No such file or directory

Step 2: Install newer version of Java

Navigate to the location where newer version of Java was copied.

$ pwd
/home/ec2-user
$ ls
jdk-8u121-linux-x64.rpm

Run following command to install Java.

$ sudo rpm -ivh jdk-8u121-linux-x64.rpm

Verify that Java is successfully installed.

$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_121"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.121-b13, mixed mode)

$ echo $JAVA_HOME
/usr/lib/jvm/jre

$ which java
/usr/bin/java