Re: X11Forwarding, ssh -X, and /bin/su

From: Per Hedeland (per_at_hedeland.org)
Date: 07/09/04 

Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 23:59:17 +0000 (UTC)

In article <cckkkn$5k2$1@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>
unruh@string.physics.ubc.ca (Bill Unruh) writes:
>per@hedeland.org (Per Hedeland) writes:
>
>]Btw, some Linux systems (perhaps others too) have PAM modules that do
>]something like this "under the cover" when you 'su' - e.g. pam_xauth on
>]RedHat. After su'ing on RH7.2, I get this (not done by my script):
>
>]# echo $XAUTHORITY
>]/root/.xauthOKMNOu
>
>]It caused some other weird problem that I've since forgotten, though...
>
>Ah. Yes, it does. I have had situations where when I then tried to su to a
>user it tried to read that file, and of course timed out after 40 sec .

Hm, that does sound vaguely familiar, but on a quick test now it seems
to do the right thing:

duva 1> echo $XAUTHORITY
XAUTHORITY: Undefined variable.
duva 2> su test
Password:
[test@duva per]$ echo $XAUTHORITY
/home/share/test/.xauthce4Ujy
[test@duva per]$ su
Password:
[root@duva per]# echo $XAUTHORITY
/root/.xauthIcIxBn
[root@duva per]# su test
[test@duva per]$ echo $XAUTHORITY
/home/share/test/.xauthdorbZW
[test@duva per]$ xterm (works, SSH-tunneled)

--Per Hedeland
per@hedeland.org