[Samba] .Xauthority & SMB

[Fredrik Tolf]

Shannon Johnson writes:
 > I'm mounting the home directories of the users upon login (using
 > pam_mount) from the Windows server. However, none of the users can run X
 > Windows. It says there's a problem with the .Xauthority file.

Would you mind posting the exact error message? I'm just curious,
because I don't think there should be any problems with xauth files on
SMB.

 > I read that the .Xauthority and the .ICEauthority files can't exist
 > on and SMB share, so I used environment variables and pointed them
 > to /tmp.

What mechanism did you use to set the environment variables? PAM?

 > Now, when the users try to start X (either through the GUI login,
 > or from "startx"), it says the connection is refused by the
 > server. Does anyone have any idea how I can work around this, or
 > how I can fix it and still have the home directories mounted from
 > the Windows server?

If you have only rebound the X authority file for the login process,
it's not very likely to work. When the display manager starts, it
creates an X authority cookie on the X server, and stores it in an
xauth file in a location that depends on the display manager. When the
user logs in, the display manager usually merges that cookie into the
xauth file in the user's home directory.

If you have only set the user's programs to check in /tmp instead,
they won't find the file that the display manager created, and thus
will not be able to authenticate themselves against the X server.

What display manager are you using?

Fredrik Tolf