[wellylug] Can't run an x-app using su

[David Murray]

On Tue, 3 Jan 2006, jumbophut wrote:

> Easier, yes, but it doesn't work as well as I would like.  And I can
> get pppd to spawn lesser-privileged child processes without a problem,
> as long as they don't use X.

What is the security of your system set at? If you have certain 
restrictions in place only particular users can run X.


>> And I would have thought that SU was not intended to be called from within
>> a programme, for security reasons.
>>
>
> As I noted, I'm not actually calling su from within my program.  That
> was just a way to simulate an suid root process to identify the
> problem interacting with X.  What happens in reality is that pppd,
> which Debian installs as suid root, calls another program with root
> privileges.  I can remove the root privileges and make it run as the
> normal user, but that still doesn't let me run X apps.
>
> I'm pretty sure that X and/or KDE, and the way they handle security,
> are at the root of my problems.

Have you tried adding pppd's user to the X-server group?


> Thanks for the suggestions though.

Just ideas. May or may not work - I ain't no programmer. :o)
Thanks.


Regards
David Murray