emacs to run as root from su, in its own X window?

emacs to run as root from su, in its own X window?

[Dan Jacobson]

This may be a debian specific problem, hence the CC.

It may be "user lack of understanding".  If so, "then beef up the
FAQs".  Or maybe I didn't look.  Anyways, I solved the problem.  I put
        xhost local:root #dangerous? else root can't open an emacs window
in ~/.xsession.  Anyways, the problem was:

How do I get emacs to run as root when I do su, in its own X window?
$ su
# emacs
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to Server
emacs: Cannot connect to X server :0.0.
Check the DISPLAY environment variable or use `-d'.
Also use the `xhost' program to verify that it is set to permit
connections from your machine.
# xhost
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to Server
xhost:  unable to open display ":0.0"
# suspend
$ xhost local:root
non-network local connections being added to access control list

OK, that fixed it.  But gee, don't you see some silly actions above,
like root doing a local command that doesn't need a DISPLAY to get its
job done being denied, etc.  Better be nice to root or he will remove you.

By the way, apt-cache show xbase-clients says
   xhost, a very dangerous program that you should never use;
Well, the man page didn't warn me.  So I used it.  Will my system be
ruined now?

By the way, on the xhost man page it says
FILES
       /etc/X*.hosts

But like hey,
ls: /etc/X*.hosts: No such file or directory

So it's a mystery where it wrote whatever it wrote.

P.S. oh, it probably didn't write anywhere, so I do the writing, in .xsession.
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780

Re: emacs to run as root from su, in its own X window?

[Andreas Schwab]

Dan Jacobson <jidanni@deadspam.com> writes:

|> How do I get emacs to run as root when I do su, in its own X window?

You need to carry the X authorization information over to root.  See
xauth(1).

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, SuSE Labs, schwab@suse.de
SuSE Linux AG, Deutschherrnstr. 15-19, D-90429 Nürnberg
Key fingerprint = 58CA 54C7 6D53 942B 1756  01D3 44D5 214B 8276 4ED5
"And now for something completely different."

Re: emacs to run as root from su, in its own X window?

[Dan Jacobson]

Sorry for the irrelevant groups and even mangled address, but I just
wanted to say I found the solution to folks on the places where I
posted my original question.  Solution =
  You guys gotta be kidding about the books and classes.  I found all I
  needed was a simple export XAUTHORITY=$HOME/.Xauthority at the top of
  the user's .xsession file and he could then su to root and run all the
  X apps he wanted... probably covers 99% of the cases...  [Note that if
  one uses ~ instead of $HOME, one can't even login (no X app will
  work) :-) ]
-- 
http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780