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Re: startx and ssh
- From: "John P. Rouillard" <rouilj at cs dot umb dot edu>
- To: cygwin-xfree at cygwin dot com
- Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2003 03:39:02 -0400
- Subject: Re: startx and ssh
- Reply-to: cygwin-xfree at cygwin dot com
- Reply-to: rouilj at ieee dot org
In message <1060734367.15425.ezmlm@cygwin.com>,
Dr.D.J.Picton" <dave@aps5.ph.bham.ac.uk> said:
["Gary Nicholson" <holokin@sisna.com> said]
>> I have been trying to de-bug a problem with startx.
>>
>> When I tried to run the file, I would get a server window,
>> no clock and no terminal windows. The command-line
>> errors were:
>> ..
>> Xlib: connection to "0.0" refused by server
>> Xlib: No Protocol specified
>>
>> These error messages would repeat until I hit ^Z
>> from the console command line.
>
>> I found that the script would fail if a .Xauthority file
>> existed in my home directory. If I removed the file,
>> startx ran without errors; the server, the clock and
>> the terminal windows all opened successfully when
>> there was no .Xauthority file in my home directory.
>>
>> I found that the .Xauthority file was being created
>> when I logged onto my Cygwin machine from another
>> machine using ssh with the same login name.
>>
>> I am proposing a fix for this problem:
>>
>> In /usr/X11R6/bin/startx, add the following code before
>> the block that exports the XAUTHORITY variable:
>>
>> # remove $HOME/.Xauthority if it exists
>> if [ -f $HOME/.Xauthority ]; then
>> rm $HOME/.Xauthority
>> fi
>>
>> This code just removes .Xauthority if it exists.
>> If .Xauthority doesn't exist, it does nothing.
>
>> Does anyone have any feedback?
>
>I've seen the problem, and in my view there's a better solution. Remove the
>code which sets XAUTHORITY.
>
>(I think the problem occurs because XWin assumes -auth $XAUTHORITY if the
>variable is set, then gets upset because it can't find the authorization
>key for your display.)
Even better, don't leave the X server wide open for everybody to screw
with. The XFree-86 server includes the security extension (see
xdpyinfo) so you should be able to generate a proper X authentication
token for the display. Something like:
xauth generate :0 .
or
xauth add $DISPLAY . `mcookie`
added to the top of your ~/.xinitrc should do the trick.
-- rouilj
John Rouillard
===========================================================================
My employers don't acknowledge my existence much less my opinions.