[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#633652: how embarrassing that root cannot use X windows on Debian

[Simon McVittie]

found 633652 1.2.1-5+lenny1
forwarded 633652 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39720
severity 633652 normal
thanks

On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 at 07:43:01 +0800, jidanni at jidanni.org wrote:
> I'm raising the severity of this bug.

This bug is not a security vulnerability and does not break unrelated
applications. The fact that Gtk apps now connect to D-Bus makes them a
related application; the reason you've only seen this recently is probably
that increasingly many Gtk apps connect to D-Bus.

I think this may be caused by upstream bug
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39720 which is being worked on.
That bug has existed ever since dbus was written, so marking this as found
in the oldest version Debian cares about (oldstable).

Kenyon Ralph writes:
> Looking at bug 633652, have you tried running X programs as root with
> sux or gksu instead of su? http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/sux
> http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/gksu

Yes, this is good advice; any tool that clears most environment variables
should work. If you don't clear environment variables, then your ordinary user
account is trivially root-equivalent anyway (for instance via LD_PRELOAD,
or for Gtk apps, GTK_MODULES) so there's little point in having privilege
separation at all.

sudoedit is another good way to edit system configuration files (it copies
the file to /var/tmp as root, edits that copy of the file as your unprivileged
uid, then copies back it into place as root). The emacs TRAMP facility that
Kenyon Ralph mentions seems an equally good approach.

When run from the (Debian, GNOME, KDE etc.) menu, system administration
apps like synaptic either run under su-to-root, which invokes gksu, sux
or an assortment of others; or, more commonly in recent applications, act
as an unprivileged front-end to a privileged system service.

jidanni writes:
> Root not allowed to use emacs? I'm telling my mom.
...
> But I suppose that's what the younger generation will
> use and just mark this bug wontfix. Alas, no family values.

Comments like this *reduce* my motivation to fix your pet bugs. If you want
people to fix things for you, please be polite. Insulting volunteer developers
is not a good way to motivate them to help you.

    S