cannot open display as root

tethysgods · 08-11-2005, 10:28 AM

I am having this problem as root.

For instance, I want to install netscape in /usr/local, so I have to do this
as root. If I wanted to install it in my own directory, the windows pop up and
everthing is fine.

In the csh I do a

setenv DISPLAY :0.0

and it shows up when i do "env".

But I still get

Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

GtkWarning** cannot open display: :0.0

trickykid · 08-11-2005, 10:31 AM

Run:

xhosts +

Which allow all users to run applications as themselves in an X environment logged in as another user.

You can specify users as well, man xhosts for more details.

tethysgods · 08-11-2005, 10:40 AM

I had tried xhosts plus even though I am on
a stan alone machine, but when I do that
it tells me it cannot open display :0.0!

trickykid · 08-11-2005, 10:40 AM

export DISPLAY instead of setenv DISPLAY

tethysgods · 08-11-2005, 10:47 AM

First off. when I su to root and do an env
I do get DISPLAY :0.0 in the first place,
you do export in bash, and setenv in csh.

tethysgods · 08-11-2005, 10:49 AM

I should add, I cant get any man pages for
xhost, I assume that is because it's a network
thing, and my machine is stand-alone.

tethysgods · 08-11-2005, 11:06 AM

Solved it!

I had to do xhost +localhost as user before
changing to root

trickykid · 08-11-2005, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tethysgods
Solved it!

I had to do xhost +localhost as user before
changing to root

Well yeah, the user running X has to give the permissions, not the user trying to run the application in X..

blackman890 · 08-11-2005, 11:50 AM

but it's root...

lamachine · 04-13-2010, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tethysgods

Solved it!

I had to do xhost +localhost as user before
changing to root

I’ve run xhost +localhost as user it didn’t fix anything.
When I try to run xclock as user or root I end up with “Error: Can't open display: 0.0”
I'm running virtual server Debian/Lenny.

lamachine · 04-13-2010, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamachine

I’ve run xhost +localhost as user it didn’t fix anything.
When I try to run xclock as user or root I end up with “Error: Can't open display: 0.0”
I'm running virtual server Debian/Lenny.

I walked around with by enabling X11 forwarding on client side => ssh -X user@machine_ip.
The xclock shows gently up and and ./RUN_setup.sh brings the promising dialog box for my Java application.

propofol · 04-14-2010, 01:44 AM

Try this as user:

Code:

export XAUTHORITY=/home/user/.Xauthority
su
xclock

Regards,
Stefan

cjcoats · 12-09-2010, 05:48 PM

I'm running debian lenny under virtualbox: logged in
as user "foo", open a terminal and "su bar", then try
to use X-based apps.

Tried both the "xhost +localhost" and "setenv XAUTHORITY /home/foo/.Xauthority" (for both 'foo" and "bar"); neither
works (whether alone or in combination).

Never had this kind of trouble in over a decade with
RedHat/Fedora/RHEL, Mandrake/Mandriva, SuSE, PCLinuxOS,
CentOS. Frustrating... and a show-stopper for my using
debian.

tethysgods · 12-10-2010, 07:31 AM

I am sure you have already searched a fair bit, but is this any help?

http://www.xs4all.nl/~zweije/xauth-6.html

"Notice that some X servers (from XFree86) can be configured not to listen on the usual TCP port with the -nolisten tcp argument. Notably the default configuration of Debian GNU/Linux is to disable the X server listening on the TCP port. If you wish to use remote X on a Debian system, you should re-enable this by altering the way the X server is started. Look at /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc for a start."

I must admit it doesn't mean much to me.

cjcoats · 12-10-2010, 04:16 PM

Thanks -- it turned out what I need was in section 7, not 6: Debian locks things down so that you need to jump through hoops with xauth and .Xauthority to have cross-user display on a given machine. This is made easier by a "su" variant called, if you can believe it, "sux" ("su with X").

I had searched a fair bit, but google found so many false positives for my problem that I never got to the "xs4all" howto.

Thanks again -- Carlie