Re: exmh, new and old

["Susan G. Kleinmann" <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>]

I found the solution to my own problem:

> About a month ago, I did something (installed? purged?) that caused exmh
> to fail when replying to a message.  Specifically, when I invoke the reply
> operation, rather than bring up an xterm and execute 'vi', as it used to,
> nothing happens at all.  

I noticed that the /usr/doc/exmh/exmh.README file encouraged the user to
execute wish, then execute the following command (with the assumption that
exmh was already running):
   send exmh {Exmh_Status "Hello world"}

On my system that command failed, indicating that the xserver was insecure.  
I finally realized that the mere existence of a magic cookie file (which is
enough to make exmh start happily) does not guarantee that the X server
was started with any knowledge of that file.  (I don't use xdm.)  So I 
now invoke X using 
   xinit -- -auth ~/.Xauthority
and exmh is able to start async processes successfully.

If this analysis is correct, it suggests that it might be useful if exmh 
would test for xserver security when it is started up, rather than 
testing only for the existence of ~/.Xauthority.

Comments?
Susan Kleinmann

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