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Re: Eek! X won't go away!



on Sat, Mar 03, 2001 at 08:06:30AM +0100, Jonathan Gift (jgift@wanadoo.fr) wrote:
> kmself@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> > 
> > Yes, launching X from a console w/o securing (or exiting) the console
> > session is a security hole.  However, securing or exiting the console
> > session is trivial.
> > 
> 
> I had just taken xlock off yesterday and i read this thread first thing
> this morning. Good timing. The problem was that I didn't see any point
> in having it on if anyone could pres ctrl-alt-bs and at the console. So
> if I want a secure X environment, what are my choices?
> 
> 1. XDM?
> 2. Secure the console before? You mention above it being trivial. How
> can one do it?

Launch X.  Kill your console session.  In one swell foop if possible.

In my case, the specific command I use is:

    $ startx -- :1 1>.startx.log 2>&1 & exit

...and in my case, it works.  Not sure why it doesn't for others, though
a 'nonup' may work.  On my laptop, I wrote the following bash function
to simplify invoking X.  In this case, the invocation is:

    $ gostartx; exit

The function:

    function gostartx 
    {
    # Wed Feb  7 14:44:04 EST 2001
    # Standard X startup -- we choose display :1

    # Practice safe X.

    if [ $# -eq 0 ]; 
    then disp=1
    else disp=$1
    fi

    if test -f /tmp/.X${disp}-lock; then
	if test -d /proc/$( cat /tmp/.X${disp}-lock | sed -e '/ */s///' );
    then
	    echo "X session already running on display :$disp" 1>&2
	    exit 1
	else
	    echo -e "Removing stale lockfile...\c"
	    if rm /tmp/.X1-lock; then
		echo "Succes"
	    else 
		echo "Failed" 1>&2
		return 1
	    fi
	fi
    fi

As for why I don't use an X display manager, well, I wrote an essay on
that topic:  http://kmself.home.netcom.com/Linux/FAQs/xdm-disable.html
...and, on my laptop, one of the problems is that it Just Doesn't Work®
and I Didn't Want To Fsck With It Any More®.

Cheers.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com>    http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?       There is no K5 cabal
  http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/         http://www.kuro5hin.org

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