[OpenIndiana-discuss] su improvement request to export user DISPLAY

[Michael Schuster]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 21:25, cpforum <cpforum at orange.fr> wrote:
> Hi
>
> When system admin su to root and launch X 11 utilities (for exemple system-config-printer) or java application (for exemple OpenOffice ./setup) they get something like that :
>
> # xterm
> xterm Xt error: Can't open display: %s
> xterm: DISPLAY is not set
>
> or less friendly
>
> # system-config-printer
> /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py:57: GtkWarning: could not open display
> warnings.warn(str(e), _gtk.Warning)
> /usr/lib/system-config-printer/system-config-printer.py:100: GtkWarning: file gdkcursor-x11.c: line 262: assertion `GDK_IS_DISPLAY (display)' failed
> busy_cursor = gtk.gdk.Cursor(gtk.gdk.WATCH)
> Traceback (most recent call last):
> File "/usr/lib/system-config-printer/system-config-printer.py", line 100, in
> busy_cursor = gtk.gdk.Cursor(gtk.gdk.WATCH)
> RuntimeError: could not create GdkCursor object
>
> One way to export DISPLAY to root (or others users) is to declare the following function inside the user .profile

you could also do "ssh -X root at localhost" - it's a bit more to type though ;-)

cheers
Michael
>
> unset su
> function su
> {
> if (( $# > 2 )) || [[ -z $DISPLAY ]]
> then
> print "Running /usr/bin/su"
> /usr/bin/su $@
> else
> print "Running su exporting DISPLAY to root"
> XDISPLAY="$(uname -n)/unix:${DISPLAY#*:}"
> /usr/bin/su - ${2-root} -c "DISPLAY=${DISPLAY} ${SHELL} -c \
> \"(/usr/bin/xauth -f $XAUTHORITY nextract - ${XDISPLAY} | \
> /usr/bin/xauth nmerge - ; ${SHELL})\""
> fi
> }
>
> The problem with this method is that you have to add theses line for every host (this method is not portable and a bit different with Solaris 10 and works only with bash and ksh).
>
> So improvement to put a code doing the job inside su.c (with or without an -X option) makes Openindiana more friendly for system admin.
>
>
>
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-- 
Michael Schuster
http://recursiveramblings.wordpress.com/