Is it possible to launch an application on a remote pc using the terminal?

Question

I found myself away from my computer needing to do some quick work that required my accessing my desktop remotely. I normally use teamviewer, but I don't have it load on boot. I can launch it from the terminal just by typing teamviewer while sitting at my computer. When I try it logged in through SSH, nothing actually loads.

Is it possible to force an app to load on the ssh server?

Solution 1

If found the answer I was looking for just in case someone comes across this in the future.

Here's how:

dan@micro:~$ ssh bigbox
dan@bigbox:~$ export DISPLAY=:0
dan@bigbox:~$ teamviewer

TeamViewer popped right up on my big PC. Perfect!

Solution 2

Use ssh with -X option:

ssh -X [user@]hostname teamviewer

See man ssh for more info.

Comments

[davidbaumann]

As you're already connected by ssh, why do you need teamviewer? Maybe you want to do X forwarding. Or you set export DISPLAY.

[Dan]

Sometimes I copy and paste things into sublime text or gedit, I found myself in the position the other day where I needed that, it wasn't saved and I wasn't home. Normally I would just do what I need with ssh, but this time I needed teamviewer. I was on a friend's windows machine. I could set teamviewer to launch on boot, but I don't want to. Is there no way to do what I'm looking for?

[Dan]

Hey, that's pretty neat! But it works backwards... I just tried it on my laptop, ssh'd into my pc, and it opened teamviewer... on my laptop. I don't even have it installed on the laptop... that's neat. But I need to launch teamviewer ON the pc I'm connected to, not the computer I'm currently on. I find it odd that I can't find an answer to this.. Surely I can't be the only one that needs something to launch remotely that's not a service

[Radu Rădeanu]

@Dan Just use in the command the [user@]hostname of the of the pc you're connected to. You said that you can connect there through SSH.

[davidbaumann]

Set it as solution, so it will appear on top.

[Dan]

I can't yet, I have to wait 16 more hours I think.

[Andre Araujo]

For me didn't work: Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyxprop: unable to open display ':0'