Linux: use SSH with X11 forwarding and compression for better performance

Posted on Updated on by Carsten KönigCategories:Computer

To get better performance when using X11 forwarding (either with the -X or -Y option) with a SSH connection, one should enable data compression:

$ ssh -X -C -c blowfish-cbc,arcfour

to avoid enabling compression with each command, one could enable it permanently in the configuration file ($HOME/.ssh/config):

  1.  
  2. Cipher blowfish
  3. Ciphers blowfish-cbc,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc
  4. Compression yes
  5.  

This would allow creating the compressed SSH connection simply through

$ ssh -X