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Re: Bug#81397: [authorization] fails silently for normal users, cannot start server



On Sat, Jan 06, 2001 at 04:39:43PM -0200, Henrique M Holschuh wrote:
> That mailing search stuff has some weird problems, yes. As for not being
> written down anywhere, the postinst asks you about it. I think there is a
> manpage for Xwrappers.config, but it's not installed in my system.

There is.  I forgot to add it to debian/xserver-common.files.  I have now
done so and it will appear in the next release.  Thanks for pointing this
out.

In the meantime, I have MIME-attached it.  To view it, use the following
command:

nroff -man whatever-you-save-it-as | pager

-- 
G. Branden Robinson             |    Convictions are more dangerous enemies
Debian GNU/Linux                |    of truth than lies.
branden@debian.org              |    -- Friedrich Nietzsche
http://www.debian.org/~branden/ |
.\" This manpage is copyright (C) 2000 Progeny Linux Systems, Inc.
.\" Author: Branden Robinson <branden@progeny.com>
.\"
.\" This is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
.\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2,
.\" or (at your option) any later version.
.\"
.\" This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
.\" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
.\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
.\" GNU General Public License for more details.
.\"
.\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
.\" along with the Debian GNU/Linux system; if not, write to the Free
.\" Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
.\" 02111-1307 USA
.TH Xwrapper.config 5 "17 Dec 2000" "Debian GNU/Linux"
.SH NAME
Xwrapper.config \- configuration options for X server wrapper
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config
contains a set of flags that determine some of the behavior of Debian's X
server wrapper, which is installed on the system as
.IR /usr/X11R6/bin/X .
The purpose of the wrapper, and of this configuration file, is twofold:
firstly, to implement sound security practice.  Since the X server requires
superuser privileges, it may be unwise to permit just any user on the
system to execute it.  Even if the X server is not exploitable in the sense
of permitting ordinary users to gain elevated privileges, a poorly-written
or insufficiently-tested hardware driver for the X server may cause bus
lockups and freeze the system, an unpleasant experience for anyone using it
at the time.
.PP
Secondly, a wrapper is a convenient place to set up an execution
environment for the X server distinct from the configurable parameters
of the X server itself.
.PP
.B Xwrapper.config
may be edited by hand, but it is typically configured via debconf, the
Debian configuration tool.  The X server wrapper is part of the
.I xserver-common
Debian package, therefore the parameters of
.B Xwrapper.config
may be changed with the command
.IR "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-common" .
See
.IR dpkg-reconfigure (8)
for more information.
.PP
The format of
.B Xwrapper.config
is a text file containing a series of lines of the form
.TP
.IR name = value
.PP
where
.I name
is a variable name containing any combination of numbers, letters, or
underscore (_) characters, and
.I value
is any combination of letters, numbers, underscores (_), dashes (-).
.I value
may also contain spaces as long as there is at least one character from the
list above bounding the space(s) on both sides.  Whitespace before and
after
.IR name , value ,
or the equals sign is legal but ignored.  Any lines not matching the above
described legal format are ignored.  Note that this specification may
change as the X server wrapper develops.
.PP
Available options are:
.IP allowed_users
may be set to one of the following values:
.BR rootonly , console , anybody .
"rootonly" indicates that only the root user may start the X server;
"console" indicates that root, or any user whose controlling TTY is a
virtual console, may start the X server; and "anybody" indicates that any
user may start the X server.
.IP nice_value
may be any integer in the interval [-20,20].  This is used to set the
executing X server's process priority.  See
.IR nice (1).
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR dpkg-reconfigure (8),
.IR nice (1)
.SH AUTHOR
This manpage was written by Branden Robinson for Progeny Linux Systems,
Inc., and Debian GNU/Linux.

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