Arch Linux

daveski

Member

Registered: 2014-06-17

Posts: 2

GlusterFS root squashing and ~/.Xauthority

Hi,
After a recent update to my Arch server, I get the following error when I login with ssh -X

/usr/bin/xauth:  file /home/dave/.Xauthority does not exist
/usr/bin/xauth:  unable to link authority file /home/dave/.Xauthority, use /home/dave/.Xauthority-n

My home account on the remote server is a mounted GlusterFS drive with root squashing enabled. If I temporarily disable root squashing, when I log in it creates the .Xauthority file and everything is fine. However when I re-enable root squashing it removes the .Xauthority file upon login and gives the same error.

Unfortunately I need to keep root squashing on, since I don't want users to be able to modify other users files when mounting the glusterfs drive on their desktop accounts (using the native glusterfs client).

Thanks in advance,
Dave

daveski

Member

Registered: 2014-06-17

Posts: 2

Re: GlusterFS root squashing and ~/.Xauthority

I have solved this by changing the default location of the .XAuthority file to a folder not on the Glusterfs volume.  This was done by setting XAUTHORITY=/folder/.XAuthority_username in ~/.pam_environment for each user. 

Note that setting XAUTHORITY globally in /etc/profile did not work, and setting it in /etc/environment meant that it could not be user specific.