Package: x2goclient, x2gostartagent Version: 4.0.5.1 Severity: wishlist
Hello. x2goclient and x2gostartagent (and the rest of X2Go) uselibssh, but do not use either the local ssh ~/.ssh/environment or the remote sshd ~/.ssh/rc . Neither does X2Go use its own corresponding config files for the remote environment. X2Go will use the remote ~/.bashrc when X2Go starts the remote bash shell, but if that .bashrc quits upon detecting a non-interactive bash session (such as the ones X2Go creates) then those .bashrc configs aren't applied to the X2Go session. That non-interactive=quit logic is standard practice, and indeed Ubuntu's /etc/skel/.bashrc includes it (among many other distros).
This lack of X2Go session configuration can cause remote clientapplications to fail. Especially where the X2Go 'Session type' = 'Single application', where the environment X2Go is using was set per- user at (interactive) login prior to using X2Go. The hackaround is to create a per-user wrapper that sets the environment (but can't just source ~/.bashrc for the non-interactive session). This is unmanageable especially for multiple users and multiple local/remote hosts, and makes setting the remote environment complex and time consuming (compared to the basic X2Go invocation configuration). It also requires the user have access to the remote filesystem, probably to a remote shell, and to use it to write freeform wrappers.
The best support for setting the environment would use a local~/.x2gorc that can set the remote environment with bash syntax, overridden by a GUI in x2goclient, overridden by a remote ~/.x2gorc , with perhaps system defaults local and remote in /etc/x2go/.x2gorc . The X2Go config files/GUI could include an option to use their ssh(d)equivalents, ie. [. ~/.ssh/environment].