[NTLUG:Discuss] Redhat, xdm, and cooser

[kbrannen@gte.net]

Greg Edwards wrote:
> kbrannen at gte.net wrote:
> 
>>
>> I'm not sure how they would do that, because you need to give 
>> permission to the "other box" to display on your local box.
>>
>> The "normal" way to do this is to:
>> 1. login to your local box
>> 2. in an xterm, run "xhost +other_host"
>> 3. ssh/telnet/rsh/whatever (in order of preference) to the other host
>> 4. set your $DISPLAY env.var. to your local host
>> 5. run your client app(s)
>>
>> There are some changes to the above if you have different user names 
>> on the 2 machines and so forth, but that's basically it.
>>
>> HTH,
>> Kevin
> 
> 
> Actually xhost is not the normal way.  It's the way that techy types 
> know and also the very-very insecure way.  If most IT upper management 
> types knew their engineers were using xhost (and the ramifications) 
> they'd flip.

Well, if I'd said "xhost +" without the machine name (or IP as that's what the 
name resolves to), I'd understand your comment.  Can you elaborate on the 
insecurity when the machine is specified?

Or are you thinking about the when the "other" machine is a server with 
multiple people on it, so someone else could then start a program on his 
machine?  That would be a problem and should be avoided, but practically 
speaking, I have rarely run into that situation. (though maybe I've just been 
lucky :-)

> 
> What Jack is looking for is a chooser.  ...

I don't like or use graphical logins, so I can see where I might be behind the 
times on these. :-)  I always login to a text console, then run "startx".

Kevin