How to run X Windows from a (headless) Ubuntu server?

Question

We have an Ubuntu server VM that is running a Java application on it, and I need to profile it using Java's JVisualVM GUI tool.

I need to SSH into the server (say, ssh admin@ourapp.example.com) and turn on X Windows so that I can run JVisualVM at the terminal and have the X Window "break out" of the VM and run on my host (a Windows 7 machine).

Answer 1

Following are the steps :

1. Install X-Windows on your Windows 7 machine (example exceed or Xming)
2. ssh to your unix machine
3. export DISPLAY to the ip address of you Win 7 box export DISPLAY=10.10.20.30:0.0
4. Test it by running xterm or JVisualVM