Re: Xwrapper?

[David Z Maze <dmaze@MIT.EDU>]

Esko P Lehtonen <eplehton@cc.helsinki.fi> writes:
EPL> I have read that using Xwrapper I could use X server as normal
EPL> user. Now if I type 'startx' in console my screen goes black and
EPL> I can only kill the X server. Should I put Xwrapper somewhere
EPL> into my rc files? How?

What's commonly referred to as "Xwrapper" is just that: it's a
so-called "wrapper" program that does some work (in this case, getting 
necessary permissions and dropping root priviledges) and the starts
the real X server.  On a normal Debian installation, such a wrapper
exists; it's the (short binary) file /usr/X11R6/bin/X.  That looks at
/etc/X11/Xserver, and decides whether or not to allow the X server to
be run, and if it does allow it, which server.

It sounds like the problem you're having is that your X server is just 
misconfigured.  This is a bit difficult to deal with on a mailing
list, especially without details of your hardware and what you're
tried to configure.

EPL> How dangerous is it to run Xserver as suid root if I am not connected
EPL> to any network?

IMHO, it should be fairly safe to run an X server suid root.  The
XFree86 tree has been around for a while, and the idea of an X wrapper 
is actually relatively new.  Still, though, I don't think there's a
particularly good reason to punt Debian's X setup; this doesn't sound
like a permissions problem.

You might try something along the lines of 'startx >xlog 2>&1' to get
a listing of all of the messages X spits out in the file "xlog" and
looking in there to see if there are any hints.  Good luck...

-- 
David Maze             dmaze@mit.edu          http://www.mit.edu/~dmaze/
"Theoretical politics is interesting.  Politicking should be illegal."
	-- Abra Mitchell