on some operating systems there is a performance benefit to using PF_UNIX sockets instead of just 127.0.0.1:6010. sshd should support this if possible. a simple patch would just add this to channels.c:x11_create_display_inet(), but i'm not sure that's the Right Thing. you would want to be able to get both 127.0.0.1:6010 and /tmp/.X11-unix/X10 (incrementing the screen number until you find a unique one), and then set DISPLAY=:10.0 if you got a unix domain socket. and you should probably also be able to configure sshd to not listen to unix sockets (cygwin, ancient SysV machines, ...). i'm working on a patch. anything else i should consider? i know there are other "local" X transports on some SysV machines, but i'd have to check the X source to see how that's done, and i'm not sure it's worth supporting.
this is very unlikely because of this is very different among unices and not portable.
This is troublesome at best. We already find some version of X that optimize their behavior when they see 'localhost' as their DISPLAY=. I suspect you'll find a lot more that will do this type of optimization for UNIX domain sockets.
What performance benefit are you talking about? Most optimisations that X servers perform when using unix domain sockets (shared memory, etc) are only appropriate when the server and the client are on the same machine. If you are referring to differing performance of TCP and unix domain sockets, remember that such differences are likely to be small compared to encryption and network delays.
I hope that every one will pull together and implement a library for dealing with the issue Markus mentioned. After all that's why we have APIs, YMMV. Damien, shared memory has little to do with what type of socket you use :) The problem is not that X is bigger than Y, but that Y can be made smaller thus effecting Z, where Y + X = Z. on some operating systems there is a performance benefit to using PF_UNIX, others will just direct you to some sort of network loopback or lack support :)) xlibs that support only XiG or XFree86 servers DO conflict with ssh, thay should be replaced when using ssh -X. I'd like to help, if there are any other problems in getting this into ssh drop me a line. I think taking some of a fully functionaly Xserver and making it into a lib for it to share with ssh would be a big leap in the right direction. Any one mind the way Xfree86 sets up sockets and manages connections?
Again, please tell us what performance benefit you are expecting. The difference between unix domain socket and local TCP socket latencies is in the order of microseconds.
Using Domain sockets will not improve anything. Reopen if you have a patch and hard proof this is even worth looking at.
Mass change of RESOLVED bugs to CLOSED