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Plasma with root-less X server



Hi!

Since quite some time Debian defaults to X without setuid root by default.
See below for relevant NEWS entry for 'xserver-xorg-core'. Also:

% ls -l /usr/bin/X
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Mär 31 12:14 /usr/bin/X -> Xorg
% ls -l /usr/bin/Xorg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 274 Mär 31 12:14 /usr/bin/Xorg

Still for Plasma the X server is started with full root privileges:

% ps aux | grep '[X]org'
root      2570  3.4  0.9 878916 150504 tty7    Ssl+ Jun03  35:44 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{3fa9520f-d081-42c7-8c59-63a42a7d91e0} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7

Despite I believe all requirements on this system to be met. Also
'xserver-xorg-legacy' package is not installed:

% dpkg -l | grep xserver-xorg | cut -c1-78
ii  xserver-xorg-core                             2:1.20.8-2                  
ii  xserver-xorg-input-libinput                   0.29.0-1                    
ii  xserver-xorg-input-wacom                      0.34.99.1-1+b1              
ii  xserver-xorg-video-intel                      2:2.99.917+git20200226-1

What is missing?

I did find next to no documentation about this.

Here the NEWS entry:

xorg-server (2:1.17.3-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  The Xorg server is no longer setuid root by default.  This change reduces the
  risk of privilege escalation due to X server bugs, but has some side effects:

  * it relies on logind and libpam-systemd
  * it relies on a kernel video driver (so the userspace component doesn't
    touch the hardware directly)
  * it needs X to run on the virtual console (VT) it was started from
  * it changes the location for storing the Xorg log from /var/log/ to
    ~/.local/share/xorg/

  On systems where those are not available, the new xserver-xorg-legacy package
  is needed to allow X to run with elevated privileges.  See the
  Xwrapper.config(5) manual page for configuration details.

 -- Julien Cristau <[…]>  Tue, 27 Oct 2015 22:54:11 +0000

Thanks,
-- 
Martin



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