[email protected] (Todd Gruhn) writes: >How do I create /root/.Xauthority?
It's a bad idea to run a desktop or X clients as root. >I use 'xauth' -- but I get nothing useful. xauth contains cookies that allow you to talk to X servers. You usually get a cookie when you log in with a display manager like xdm. The cookie is a random number. When you start the X server, you pass it a filename with the cookie using the -auth parameter. xdm generates a cookie and writes it into something like: /var/db/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:$DISPLAYNUMBER-$RANDOMSUFFIX it starts the X server with the appropriate -auth parameter pointing to that file and when you login, it merges the contents into your $HOME/.Xauthority. When you use startx, then startx creates a random cookie and stores it in $HOME/.serverauth.$$. It then starts the X server with the appropriate -auth parameter pointing to that file and also merges the contents into your $HOME/.Xauthority. If you want to allow a root process to use your display, then root can could your cookie like: xauth -f ~$USER/.Xauthority nlist "$DISPLAY" | xauth nmerge - However, for such hacks, it's better not to change the default ~root/.Xauthority but to create a secured temporary file and point the environment variable XAUTHORITY to it.
