[LightDM] lightdm and running the xserver without root rights

[poma]

On 14.03.2014 04:28, Robert Ancell wrote:
> Hi Hans,
> 
> Thanks for raising this! I've opened a bug [1] for this. I think this is a
> good feature for LightDM to support if distributions want to shift to this
> method in the future.
> 
> While we've been wanting non-root X forever in Ubuntu my guess is we will
> shift to using Mir/Unity System Compositor which will remove the need for a
> root X server. So that means it's unlikely I will personally spend any time
> implementing this. What is less clear is what the Ubuntu derivatives
> (Xubuntu etc) will do.
> 
> If other LightDM consumers want/need this please add information to the bug
> so we know of the demand. I'm happy to review code of anyone who wants to
> implement this. It shouldn't be too hard with the changes we made to
> support next generation display servers like Mir and Wayland.
> 
> Thanks,
> --Robert
> 


The only change so far:
status: New → Triaged
importance: Undecided → Wishlist

I hope "Wishlist" ain't "Wishful Thinking Gets You Nowhere". :)

Hans, it is obvious Robert ain't gonna do it, so what about Uncle R'Hat pay the Ray man,
you know, Ka-Ching! ;)


> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/lightdm/+bug/1292324
> 
> 
> On 14 March 2014 09:08, Hans de Goede <hdegoede at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Quick self intro: I've been a FOSS developer since 1996, recently
>> I've mostly been working on USB support in the kernel, libusb and qemu.
>> I've started working for Red Hat 5 years ago and recently I've changed
>> teams to the Graphics team.
>>
>> Currently I'm finishing support for systemd-logind's new session-controller
>> API (TakeControl and friends) for Xorg, with the purpose that the xserver
>> will use systemd-logind to open and manage input and drm devices for it,
>> so that it will no longer need root rights.
>>
>> In order for this to work the X server needs to be started inside the
>> users (pam) session. This is identical to how things will work between
>> wayland and systemd-logind, so any work done to support this will
>> also apply to future wayland support.
>>
>> For this to work the xserver will also need to be able to access
>> the vc (/dev/tty#) on which it is being started so this needs to
>> be setup properly too.
>>
>> Note I've already had a discussion about this with the gdm maintainer
>> on the xorg-devel list, see:
>> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.freedesktop.xorg.devel/38796
>>
>> For some more info, all see the slides of my Fosdem talk on this:
>> https://fosdem.org/2014/schedule/event/rootless_xserver/
>>
>> Video of the talk is here:
>>
>> http://video.fosdem.org/2014/H1301_Cornil/Saturday/Making_the_Xserver_run_without_root_rights.webm
>>
>> I hope you can add support for this to lightdm. If you've any questions
>> let me know.
>>
>> Thanks & Regards,
>>
>> Hans
>> _______________________________________________
>> LightDM mailing list
>> LightDM at lists.freedesktop.org
>> http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/lightdm
>>
> 
> 
> 
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