[Samba] .Xauthority & SMB

[Fredrik Tolf]

Shannon Johnson writes:
 > > 
 > > 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

Oh, yes, that's right. It uses hard links for locking. I didn't know
that until I checked right now, actually. Thanks for telling me; I
learned something new. =)

 > > 
 > > 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

I think it's fine for the ICE authority. As far as I know, it is
created by the session manager after login, so all programs should be
synchronized in that matter.

As for the X authority, however, that won't work, since the Display
Manager will still put the initial cookie in the user's home dir.

 > > What display manager are you using?
 > 
 > 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.

The default under RH (and Fedora) is gdm, yes.

In that case, edit /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf and change the UserAuthDir
line so that it reads "UserAuthDir=/tmp". I think that should make it
work.

Fredrik Tolf