[NTLUG:Discuss] RE: Discuss digest, Vol 1 #1105 - 3 msgs

[Jay Cox]

On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Vaidya, Harshal (Cognizant) wrote:

> The problem is that i can run X through the root account but not as a normal
> user.Any clues for this one ?
>
> Jay Wrote :
> Did you su to another user in that terminal before you did this? That's
> one way to get that error.
>


You might consider

strace -f startx 2> errorfile

and looking at its output. (or send it to me and I might take a look at
it.)  I don't think you'll be revealling any private information or
anything that could compromise your security severly (but I'm
not a security expert).  However, there is ALWAYS a chance when you reveal
information about your computer system.

for instance, here's a portion of my errorfile output.


[pid  2514] execve("/usr/kerberos/bin/X", ["X", ":0", "-auth",
"/home/jay/.Xauth

<snip>

[pid  2514] access("/var/lock/console/jay", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such
file or directory)
[pid  2514] munmap(0x40018000, 6984)    = 0
[pid  2514] munmap(0x4001a000, 48900)   = 0
[pid  2514] munmap(0x4017f000, 149352)  = 0
[pid  2514] munmap(0x40026000, 6808)    = 0
[pid  2514] munmap(0x4016d000, 6552)    = 0
[pid  2514] write(2, "Authentication failed - cannot s"...,
89Authentication failed - cannot start X server.
Perhaps you do not have console ownership?) = 89
[pid  2514] _exit(1)                    = ?


It looks to me like that may access line may be the cause of
why I X doesn't have access to the console.

furthermore you could compare the strace of that to the strace of a
successfull launch of startx.

(funny thing though, i try stracing startx on a console I do own
and have access to and startx fails to launch! whereas I lanch it without
strace and it runs! damn heisenbugs!))



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BTW, I see you also get your ntlug discussion messages by digest.
You might consider changing your account (via url above) to accept mime
types. (This assumes your emailer can handle it.  I just use pine and it
can take it)  that way you might be able to reply to specific messages in
the digest without having to slurp the whole thing in and cut & paste the
specific message you want to reply to.