Feisty: gksu/gksudo don't work on thin clients?

[Philipp Hanselmann]

Hi

Meanwhile I found a solution for this issue ...


The issue is related with the .Xauthority file doesn't get generated by
the display manager (ldm) during a user login with the setting
LDM_DIRECT = True.
I was reading some documentation about xauth mechanisms and there I was
reading that a display manager is supposed to generate and .Xauthority
during a  user login.

I figure out that when I copy as root the xauth file to the home folder
(cp -f '/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth' /home/user/.Xauthority ) than the gksu,
gksudo is working normally with this user on the thin clients.

To automate this I added a X11 login script to the /etc/X11/Xsession.d/
folder, as name I choosed 81-fix-xauth.

    if [ -e '/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth']
        cp -f '/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth' $HOME/.Xauthority || true
    fi

But, than I noticed, that normal user doesn't have read permission to
the /var/lib/gdm folder, and even to change it to read wouldn't help
like these folder
permissions get corrected during the starting phase of gdm (server
display manager)

What I did now, I just added this line to /etc/init.d/gdm somewhere
behind the "daemon start line"
chmod 775 /var/lib/gdm

Since than the issue are gone ...

Sorry Scott  for this hack, but I was trying a couple of other ways, but
I was finally the only one, which was working for us up to now

Philipp



Philipp Hanselmann wrote:
> Hi
>
> I tested this again, its only happen with LDM_DIRECT = True, otherwise 
> gksudo/gksu is working on the thin clients.
>
> May this is in connection with the DISPLAY variable during a client 
> login, which is different with deactivated encryption (LDM_DIRECT = True).
>
> with LDM_DIRECT=true
> echo $DISPLAY         192.168.0.249:6.0
>
> otherwise (without this option)
> echo $DISPLAY         localhost:11:0
>
>
> Can somebody help ?
>
> Philipp
>
>
> Philipp Hanselmann wrote:
>   
>> Hi
>>
>> On 2 Feisty installations up to now, I figured out that programs witch 
>> needs be started with gksu or gksudo, works only on the server.
>>
>> When I am using for example synaptic on a thin client I only get this 
>> error message:
>>
>>    "Failed to run synaptic as root. Unable to copy Xauthorization file"
>>
>> If am running the same from the console, like this:
>>
>> $ gksu synaptic
>>
>> I get additional this line:
>>
>>    "Error copying: /home/teacher/.Xautority to /tmp/libgksu-doX No 
>> such file or directory"
>>
>> The same is happening with the command gksudo.
>>
>> Now I figured out, that really the .Xautority file in the home folder 
>> is missing. Like I understand, this file is getting created during a 
>> user login automatically. This happen at least during a login with the 
>> same user on the server.
>>
>> One way is to get it working is this:
>>
>> 1.) ON THE SERVER: login with the user teacher
>> 2.) ON THE SERVER: cp .Xautority .Xautority.org
>> 3.) ON THE SERVER: logout
>>
>> 4.) ON A CLIENT:  login with the user teacher
>> 5.) ON A CLIENT:  cp .Xautority.org .Xautority
>> 6.) ON A CLIENT:  gksu synaptic
>>
>> On other way is just to use kdesu instead of gksu.
>>
>>
>> $ kdesu synaptic
>>
>> that is on the screen:
>>  
>> <snip>
>> xauth: creating new athoirty file /home/teacher/.Xauthority
>> kdesu (kdelibs): WARINING: No authentication info set for display 
>> 192.168.0.250:6.0
>> </snip>
>>
>> kdesu is able to create the .Xautority file, and finally I get 
>> synaptic as root.
>>
>> Does somebody know a solution for this except to use kdesu.
>> May this is imported, I am using  LDM_DIRECT = True in lts.conf 
>> together with a updated ldm script.
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Philipp
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>   


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