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Accepted
Parimal N
Asked: 2011-01-17 20:59:40 +0800 CST

How do I create the .Xauthority file?

  • 772

I don't have a .Xauthority file in my home folder. I want to create it, please tell me the steps to do so in ubuntu 10.10.

Thank You!

xorg

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    In Ubuntu 10.10 there's no longer a ~/.Xauthority file. Instead you'll find the equivalent in

    /var/run/gdm/auth-for-<USER>-<RANDOM_CHARACTERS>/database

    which will be re-created with new random characters on every session start. You can get its name via the $XAUTHORITY environment variable.

    If you need a ~/.Xauthority file to be present, I guess you can simply create a symbolic link to $AUTHORITY on every session start:

    1. Open System > Preferences > Startup Applications

    2. Click on Add :

      • Name: Xauthority
      • Command: /bin/bash -c 'ln -s -f "$XAUTHORITY" ~/.Xauthority'
      • Comment: Creates a symbolic link from ~/.Xauthority to $XAUTHORITY

      and add the entry by clicking on Add.

    3. Now every time you log in, it should create the link to the current authority file.

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  2. (there indeed appears to be .Xauthority files in Ubuntu 14.10, so I don't know, per the accepted answer, if they went away and came back?)

    Probably solved a long time ago but for completeness, when you ssh to a remote system, use:

    ssh -X user@remote

    You will get a complaint that the .Xauthority file did not exist and also find it was just created. This is dependent some settings in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

    X11Forwarding yes 
X11DisplayOffset 10 
X11UseLocalhost yes

    Refer to http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1863739 where I was able to confirm my own experience with this errant error.

    While you are checking / updating /etc/ssh/sshd_config make sure root login is disallowed, just a good practice:

    PermitRootLogin no
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