sux(1) [debian man page]
SUX(1) User Commands SUX(1) NAME
sux - wrapper around su which will transfer your X credentials SYNOPSIS
sux [OPTS] [-] [[username] [ARGS]] suxterm [OPTS] [-] [username] DESCRIPTION
sux is a wrapper around the standard su command which will transfer your X credentials to the target user. Note, suxterm forces ARGS to be 'xterm', and will try to launch an xterminal window. QUICK CALLING
'sux user' and 'sux - user' behave just like su but transfer $DISPLAY and the X cookies. OPTIONS
--untrusted To generate an untrusted cookie, see 'xauth'. --timout <period> To generate a temporary cookie for <period> seconds, see 'xauth'. -m,-p --preserve-environment In this case sux will override XAUTHORITY to the so that xauth does not try to use the original user's .Xauthority file (which it obviously could not do anyway due to access rights). --no-cookies Just transfer DISPLAY, not the cookies. You could do this if you have already transfered the cookies in a previous invocation of sux. --copy-cookies Copy the cookies using xauth. This is the default method (and only method most of the time). --use-xauthority Instead of transfering the cookies, set the XAUTHORITY environment variable to access the original .Xauthority file. There's a cou- ple caveats with this method. First, due to the access right issues it's only usable by root. But even then it may not work if the .Xauthority file is accessed via NFS, e.g. if the home directories are on NFS (note that this is quite dangerous already since your cookies will travel unencrypted over the network). Then, if root runs commands like xauth add/remove, the .Xauthority's ownership will belong to him. This will leave the original user in trouble as he will no longer be able to access X! So only use this option with great care. Finally, this method does not work if you also want to use '--untrusted' or '--timeout'. --display specify which display to use (in case of having more than one available). AUTHOR
Originally written by Francois Gouget <fgouget@free.fr> Manpage written by Millis Miller <millis@faztek.org> REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <millis@faztek.org>. COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICU- LAR PURPOSE. SEE ALSO
su (1), xauth (1) sux 1.0 Sept 2003 SUX(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
pam_xauth(8) System Administrator's Manual pam_xauth(8) NAME
pam_xauth - forward xauth keys between users SYNOPSIS
session optional /lib/security/pam_xauth.so arguments DESCRIPTION
pam_xauth.so is designed to forward xauth keys (sometimes referred to as "cookies") between users. Without pam_xauth, when xauth is enabled and a user uses the su command to assume another user's priviledges, that user is no longer able to access the original user's X display because the new user does not have the key needed to access the display. pam_xauth solves the problem by forwarding the key from the user running su (the source user) to the user whose identity the source user is assuming (the target user) when the session is created, and destroying the key when the session is torn down. This means, for example, that when you run su from an xterm sesssion, you will be able to run X programs without explicitly dealing with the xauth command or ~/.Xauthority files. pam_xauth will only forward keys if xauth can list a key connected to the $DISPLAY environment variable. Primitive access control is provided by ~/.xauth/export in the invoking user's home directory and ~/.xauth/import in the target user's home directory. If a user has a ~/.xauth/import file, the user will only receive cookies from users listed in the file. If there is no ~/.xauth/import file, the user will accept cookies from any other user. If a user has a .xauth/export file, the user will only forward cookies to users listed in the file. If there is no ~/.xauth/export file, and the invoking user is not root, the user will forward cookies to any other user. If there is no ~/.xauth/export file, and the invoking user is root, the user will not forward cookies to other users. Both the import and export files support wildcards (such as *). Both the import and export files can be empty, signifying that no users are allowed. ARGUMENTS
debug Turns on debugging messages sent to syslog. xauthpath=/usr/X11R6/bin/xauth Specify the path the xauth program (the default is /usr/X11R6/bin/xauth). IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
pam_xauth will work only if it is used from a setuid application in which the getuid() call returns the id of the user running the applica- tion, and for which PAM can supply the name of the account that the user is attempting to assume. The typical application of this type is su. The application must call both pam_open_session() and pam_close_session() with the ruid set to the uid of the calling user and the euid set to root, and must have provided as the PAM_USER item the name of the target user. pam_xauth calls xauth as the source user to extract the key for $DISPLAY, then calls xauth as the target user to merge the key into the a temporary database and later remove the database. pam_xauth cannot be told not to remove the keys when the session is closed. SEE ALSO
/usr/share/doc/pam*/html/index.html FILES
~/.xauth/import ~/.xauth/export BUGS
Let's hope not, but if you find any, please report them via the "Bug Track" link at http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/ AUTHOR
Nalin Dahyabhai <nalin@redhat.com>, based on original version by Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm@redhat.com> Red Hat Linux 2001/9/27 pam_xauth(8)