Re: display export??

["Richard E. Hawkins" <hawk@hawkins.ds.psu.edu>]

> Simply execute 'xhost +localhost' before doing a su.

the use of xhost to do this is grequentlyh considered a security risk 
by folks who understand such things (But I'm not one of them, so don't 
ask me to explain why :)

There's (at least) two secure ways to do things.  One is to, as the logged  
in user, type

  xauth list $DISPLAY

and receive something back like

hawkins/unix:0  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  89978798dea097090890907890


then, in your root window, type 

  xauth add $DISPLAY  MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1  89978798dea097090890907890 
(use the mouse to cut and paste; you're not likely to type that many 
hex digits correctly)

another way is to use ssh, which tunnels X.  I have the alias

alias rw  "nice xterm -bg pink -fg black -geom 80x25-5+200 -T rw@hawkins -e "ssh localhost -lroot " & 

to launch the terminal, label it, paint it pink as a warning, and begin 
the ssh session.

hawk