redhat man page for xhost

XHOST(1)						      General Commands Manual							  XHOST(1)

NAME
       xhost - server access control program for X

SYNOPSIS
       xhost [[+-]name ...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  xhost program is used to add and delete host names or user names to the list allowed to make connections to the X server.  In the case
       of hosts, this provides a rudimentary form of privacy control and security.  It is only sufficient for a workstation (single user) environ-
       ment,  although	it  does  limit  the worst abuses.  Environments which require more sophisticated measures should implement the user-based
       mechanism or use the hooks in the protocol for passing other authentication data to the server.

OPTIONS
       Xhost accepts the following command line options described below.  For security, the options that effect access control	may  only  be  run
       from the "controlling host".  For workstations, this is the same machine as the server.	For X terminals, it is the login host.

       -help   Prints a usage message.

       [+]name The given name (the plus sign is optional) is added to the list allowed to connect to the X server.  The name can be a host name or
	       a user name.

       -name   The given name is removed from the list of allowed to connect to the server.  The name can be a host name or a user name.  Existing
	       connections  are  not  broken, but new connection attempts will be denied.  Note that the current machine is allowed to be removed;
	       however, further connections (including attempts to add it back) will not be permitted.	Resetting the server (thereby breaking all
	       connections) is the only way to allow local connections again.

       +       Access is granted to everyone, even if they aren't on the list (i.e., access control is turned off).

       -       Access is restricted to only those on the list (i.e., access control is turned on).

       nothing If  no  command	line arguments are given, a message indicating whether or not access control is currently enabled is printed, fol-
	       lowed by the list of those allowed to connect.  This is the only option that may be used from machines other than  the  controlling
	       host.

NAMES
       A complete name has the syntax ``family:name'' where the families are as follows:

       inet	 Internet host
       dnet	 DECnet host
       nis	 Secure RPC network name
       krb	 Kerberos V5 principal
       local	 contains only one name, the empty string

       The family is case insensitive.	The format of the name varies with the family.

       When  Secure  RPC is being used, the network independent netname (e.g., "nis:unix.uid@domainname") can be specified, or a local user can be
       specified with just the username and a trailing at-sign (e.g., "nis:pat@").

       For backward compatibility with pre-R6 xhost, names that contain an at-sign (@) are assumed to be in the nis family.   Otherwise  the  inet
       family is assumed.

DIAGNOSTICS
       For  each  name	added  to the access control list, a line of the form "name being added to access control list" is printed.  For each name
       removed from the access control list, a line of the form "name being removed from access control list" is printed.

FILES
       /etc/X*.hosts

SEE ALSO
       X(7x), Xsecurity(7x), Xserver(1), xdm(1)

ENVIRONMENT
       DISPLAY to get the default host and display to use.

BUGS
       You can't specify a display on the command line because -display is a valid command line argument (indicating that you want to  remove  the
       machine named ``display'' from the access list).

       The X server stores network addresses, not host names.  This is not really a bug.  If somehow you change a host's network address while the
       server is still running, xhost must be used to add the new address and/or remove the old address.

AUTHORS
       Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science,
       Jim Gettys, MIT Project Athena (DEC).

X Version 11							    Release 6.6 							  XHOST(1)