[Samba] Workaround found, .Xauthority and SMB, Mounting home directory

[Schlomo Schapiro]

Hi,

just an idea:

the display manager (GDM, ...) usually stores the XAUTHORITY cookie in the 
.Xauthority file in the users' home dir. If you mount that on-the-fly, 
maybe you mount it too late ? So that .Xauthority in the user home dir is 
not accessible at this stage ? With the xhost +localhost you effectively 
circumvent X security.

I had a similar case here (though with Novell servers) and solved it and 
the KDE / GNOME problem you describe by keeping the homedir local and 
mounting the server homedir in a subdirectory of the homedir. This way the 
Linux stuff stays on the Linux side and the personal files and data stays 
on the server side.

Regards,
Schlomo

PS: BTW. If you use XDM as display manager, you can debug better because 
it is much simpler than any other display manager.
PPS: Tell please, if this helps.


On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Ben Ford - Bio-Logic Aqua Technologies wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Finally got this working!!
> 
> I have found a potential Workaround to the following error:
> 
> >/etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: Registering your session with wtmp
> >and
> > utmp
> > /etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default: running: /usr/bin/X11/sessreg -a
> >-w /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h "" -1
> >":0"
> >"test"
> >Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
> >Xlib: No protocol specified
> >
> Some prerequisites:
> I'm running Fedora Core 1 ( stock install ) with pam_mount mounting my home 
> directory on the PDC.
> I'm reluctantly using GDM ( not my favorite but it will do )
> Last, I'm using KDE, but GNOME works too.
> 
> First, I followed suggestions from previous posts, and did a little tweaking 
> on my own, which include the following:
> 
> a) I've added the following to the user's .bash_profile:
> export XAUTHORITY=/tmp/.Xauthority
> export ICEAUTHORITY=/tmp/.ICEauthority
> 
> b) NOTE: gnome doesn't require this step.
> I did some editing of my /usr/bin/startkde script to move all .kde and .kderc 
> etc... files OUT of the home directory.  From what I can tell, limits in the 
> SMBFS are not allowing kde to start successfully. (sockets??)
>  This is a heavy workaround, but works nicely in our environment.
> If you would like details on this fix let me know.
> 
> **Despite these changes, the above mentioned error was still appearing.**
> 
> **Here is what I've done:**
> 
> 1) add the following to the file: /etc/X11/gdm/PreSession/Default
> 
> XHOST=`which xhost 2>/dev/null`
> if [ "x$XHOST" != "x" ] ; then
>         echo "Executing xhost +localhost.."
>         exec "$XHOST" +localhost
> fi
> 
> I think it's important to add this before the following line:
> SESSREG=`which sessreg 2>/dev/null`
> ...
> 
> 
> Essentially, I'm executing the following command: "xhost +localhost".
> I used their conventions for running a command, hence the if statement etc...
> 
> 2) I'm pretty sure you need to restart GDM.
> 
> 3) now go ahead and log in. It will work perfectly!!!
> 
> I don't know enough about X to give you a complete explanation for the fix, 
> but using xhost in this fashion allows any user on the host "localhost" to 
> connect to the X server.  Without it, the connection is refused, hence the 
> error you were getting.
> 
> I would gladly accept any feedback or comments on this fix.  
> I'm also very curious if anybody else tried running a GUI with their home 
> directory mounted via SMBFS or NFS?
> 
> I've attempted both and found SMBFS to be a adequate.  This issue was the last 
> to get over.  Now I must go through and refine different aspects
> 

-- 
Regards,
Schlomo