weird files in /root ?? what are these?

trey85stang · 08-11-2004, 07:37 PM

Ok, I still consider myself a noob.. but anyways... I have a few weird files I noticed while in /root.. I do not know what they are and am curious....

This is Mandrake 10 CE.

here is the ls.

Code:

[root@localhost root]# ls -a
./             .cshrc          .kde/           tmp/          .Xdefaults
../            Desktop/        .loki/          .viminfo      .xsession-errors
.bash_history  drakx/          .menu/          .vimrc
.bash_logout   .fonts.cache-1  .qt/            .Xauthority
.bash_profile  .fullcircle/    .recently-used  .xauthrYlDhj
.bashrc        .ICEauthority   .tcshrc         .xauthxPvV9n
[root@localhost root]#

my question is.. what exactly are the two .xauth* files?? they are files not directories... and they cannot be opened with vi or gedit etc...

MikeZila · 08-11-2004, 08:04 PM

They're probably encrypted password files. That would explain why you can't open them. Most of the stuff that starts with "." is stuff you shouldn't mess with, especially in /root

Hope that clears things up!

hw-tph · 08-12-2004, 12:23 AM

They are cookie files for xauth authentication. Refer to the xauth howto for more information. A quick way to determine what cookie file is in use is to type xauth -v.

Håkan

trey85stang · 08-12-2004, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hw-tph
They are cookie files for xauth authentication. Refer to the xauth howto for more information. A quick way to determine what cookie file is in use is to type xauth -v.

Håkan

thanks for the info!