Re: running CygwinX with a limited user account

["J Jude" <jmjudeb at gmail dot com>]

I am getting the same error as Bart, and I have diagnosed the problem,
but I do not know how to completely fix it.

Problem #1:
XWin uses the same log file name in /tmp for all users.  Limited users
cannot overwrite or remove administrator log files, so startxwin.bat
fails.
Workaround #1:
Update startxwin.bat to use "-logfile /tmp/xwin-%USERNAME%.log"

Problem #2:
/tmp/.X11-unix is created with the sticky bit set.  Limited users
cannot overwrite X0.
Workaround #1:
As admin, remove sticky bit from /tmp/.X11-unix.  This is not a
completely acceptable solution, because the sticky bit is replaced
every time an admin logs into the machine.

Setting up Cygwin so that each user had their own /tmp dir sounds like
a better workaround for both problems, but I have not yet figured out
how to do that.

In the long run, the Cygwin/X11 distribution should work for limited
users out-of-the-box.

Thanks



On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, Bart Bacon wrote:

> To the Gurus of CygwinX,
> I've noticed that in order to run CygwinX on separate accounts on the
> same machine, all users must have "computer administrator" privileges
> under the Windows XP Professional operating system.  Is there any work
> around to allow users with "limited" privileges (such as my daughter) to
> access CygwinX? Cygwin does not seem to have this problem.  Thanks for a
> great product and hopefully a response to this question.

It would help to know exactly what error messages you're getting from the
"limited" account, but it sounds like the problem of not being able to
overwrite either /tmp/.X11-unix or /tmp/XWin.log.  X creates a directory
in /tmp that is owned by the last user who ran X (and, of course, so is
the log file).  The next user may need to have administrative privileges
to overwrite the directory and log.

One possible solution is to have a different /tmp for your daughter's
account -- see "man mount" for user mounts.  Let us know if it helps.  If
not, please give a better description of your problem, with the steps to
reproduce it and the error messages you see.
HTH,
	Igor
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