[RndTbl] TTY1 and Starting X Windows

[Gilbert E. Detillieux]

According to Montana Quiring:
> Good information. Thanks.
> 
> If I put this line in /etc/inittab:
> x:2:respawn:/usr/X11R6/bin/startx > tty1
> or
> x:2:respawn:/usr/X11R6/bin/startx
> 
> I get this error after it boots up:
> /usr/X11R6/bin/startx: line xxx: xinit: command not found
> /usr/X11R6/bin/startx: line xxx: xauth: command not found
> (xxx being a number in the 100's)
> 
> This led me to look at the startx script and I figured out that xauth and
> xinit were scripts in /usr/X11R6/bin/ that were not in the path when
> inittab  was being run.
> 
> So I edited startx and made the first line:
> export PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin/
> 
> Now X starts but it starts as root. *Insert frown here*
> I guess this makes sense because inittab is run as root, right?

That's correct.  But wasn't that the case all along?  I.e. when you ran
"/bin/bash -login" from inittab, and it called startx from .bash_profile,
that was all running as root as well?

But, I can see why you'd want to change that...

> So I edited the /etc/inittab again and changed the line to:
> x:2:respawn:/usr/bin/sudo -H -u me /usr/X11R6/bin/startx
> 
> and I added this to sudoers:
> me    ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/X11R6/bin/startx
> 
> but I get this error on bootup:
> X: user not authorized to run the X server, aborting.
> xinit: Server error.
> 
> Gee wizz this has been a pain.

That's strange.  I wonder what would happen on this machine if a non-root
user logged in (on a virtual console tty) and ran startx from a shell prompt?
I'm not sure why that would work if the above sudo command doesn't...

I wonder if console (or some other device) ownership is the issue?  You may
need to set up a wrapper script which first sets device ownership correctly,
using pam_console_apply (if it's there) or a bunch of chown commands, then
does the sudo command, then finally (maybe) resets device ownerships after
the startx is finished.

-- 
Gilbert E. Detillieux		E-mail:	<gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Computer Science	Web:	http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/
University of Manitoba		Phone:	(204)474-8161
Winnipeg, MB, CANADA  R3T 2N2	Fax:	(204)474-7609