What does "Warning: untrusted X11 forwarding setup failed: xauth key data not generated" mean when ssh'ing with -X?

Solution 1:

Any reason you don't want to use the -Y flag instead of the -X flag?

Quite simply, the difference between -X and -Y is that -Y enables trusted X11 forwarding.

Solution 2:

If you're coming here in 2015: even if everything else is set up properly, this can also happen on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, when using ssh -X and running an XQuartz version <= 2.7.7. The root cause is X11 display sockets getting written outside of the xauth search path: issue #2068 in the XQuartz tracker.

Edit: A fixed XQuartz has since been released at the new homepage, xquartz.org, and installing the latest version from there (currently 2.7.9) will work around the issue.

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Solution 3:

If you get the same message even when using -Y, the xauth program might be missing on the server. On Debian-like systems, you need the xauth package. On RedHat-like systems, you need the xorg-x11-xauth package.

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Solution 4:

"Untrusted" in this context means you don't trust the connection. SSH will use additional security measures to try to make X11 forwarding safer. "Trusted" means you are entirely confident that no on on the remote host will get access to your Xauth data and use it to monitor your keystrokes for instance.

This terminology actually confused me for years. I thought "Trusted" connections were safer. But actually it's an option you're supposed to use in situations where the connection IS trustworthy and you want to run stuff without extra security measures getting in your way. "Untrusted" is the one that makes it (somewhat) safer to deal with an untrusted remote host.

An "Untrusted" connection attempts to limit what a black hat could do to you by engaging the X11 security extension and disabling other extensions that you (hopefully) don't need. This is probably why RandR is disabled with -X. Do you need to be able to rotate your X display from the remote host?

It's also important to note that "untrusted" X11 forwarding turns off after a certain amount of time to keep you from accidentally leaving it on. New attempts to open windows will just fail after that. That bit me several times before I read enough docs to understand what was happening.

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Solution 5:

BEWARE (tired of reading incomplete answers which lead to security flaw)

1. using ssh -Y means here having fake xauth information which is bad!

2. ssh -X should work since XQuartz, once enabled, uses xauth. The only problem is that ssh is looking for xauth in /usr/X11R6/bin and on macos with XQuartz it is in /opt/X11/bin

Secure solving:

1. Enable the first option in Security tab of preferences (Cmd-,) which enables authenticated connections

2. add the following to $HOME/.ssh/config

   XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauth

3. ssh -X you_server works in a secure maner