ssh - Unable to open X display when trying to run google-chrome on Centos (Rhel 7.5)

Question

I need to run Google Chrome remotely on a virtual machine using SSH. I do not want xforwarding - I want to utilize the GPU available on the vm. When I try running google-chrome I get following error:

[19615:19615:0219/152933.751028:ERROR:browser_main_loop.cc(1512)] Unable to open X display.

I've tried to setting my DISPLAY env value to various values:

export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:0.0
export DISPLAY=:0.0

I've also tried replacing 0.0 in abowe examples with different values.

I have ForwardX11 no in /etc/ssh/sshd_config I tried setting up target like this:

systemctl isolate multi-user.target

When I try to run sudo lshw -C display i get folowing output:

   *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Hyper-V virtual VGA
       vendor: Microsoft Corporation
       physical id: 8
       bus info: pci@0000:00:08.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: vga_controller bus_master rom
       configuration: driver=hyperv_fb latency=0
       resources: irq:11 memory:f8000000-fbffffff
  *-display UNCLAIMED
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GM204GL [Tesla M60]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 1
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: iomemory:f0-ef iomemory:f0-ef memory:41000000-41ffffff memory:fe0000000-fefffffff memory:ff0000000-ff1ffffff

I've tried to update my gpu drivers by:

wget https://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/confirmation.php?url=/tesla/375.66/nvidia-diag-driver-local-repo-rhel7-375.66-1.x86_64.rpm
yum -y install nvidia-diag-driver-local-repo-rhel7-375.66-1.x86_64.rpm

But after that I still see UNCLIMED next to my NVIDIA gpu. Aby ideas?

Answer 1

You can try with Xvfb. it does not require additional hardware.

Install Xvfb if you didn't install it yet and do the following steps.

sudo apt-get install -y xvfb

Dependencies to make "headless" chrome/selenium work:

sudo apt-get -y install xorg xvfb gtk2-engines-pixbuf
sudo apt-get -y install dbus-x11 xfonts-base xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-cyrillic xfonts-scalable

Optional but nifty: For capturing screenshots of Xvfb display:

sudo apt-get -y install imagemagick x11-apps

Make sure that Xvfb starts every time the box/vm is booted:

Xvfb -ac :99 -screen 0 1280x1024x16 &
export DISPLAY=:99

Run Google Chrome

google-chrome