[Samba] .Xauthority & SMB

[Shannon Johnson]

> 
> 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.
> 

Sure. From what I understand, the .Xauthority and .ICEauthority use hard
links that don't work on any Windows-based filesystem, including SMB.
The exact message is:

xauth: error in locking authority file /home/users/username/.Xauthority

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

I put the following in the user's .bash_profile:

XAUTHORITY=/tmp/.Xauthority
export XAUTHORITY
ICEAUTHORITY=/tmp/.ICEauthority
export ICEAUTHORITY

> 
> 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.

That's what I thought... but I read a post somewhere that said if you
use the environment variables and point the Xauthority somewhere else
(he specifically suggested /tmp), it should work. 

> 
> 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

I suppose it's gnome... it's the default under Red Hat 8, 9, and Fedora.
I know the theme name is Bluecurve, but I don't know what the actual
display manager is.