Arch Linux

rwd

Member

Registered: 2009-02-08

Posts: 664

[solved] How come x runs as root when I start it as normal user?

My knowledge of permissions in Linux is a bit basic, so I always wondered why it is that when I log in as a normal user and execute 'startx' a process 'x' is started running as root and not myself.

In a similar vein, I can perform shutdown from Xfce, but I need to sudo if I want to do that from the command line. 

Not that these things are a problem, it just seems a bit puzzling why I don't need sudo in all these cases, i.e. how are these permissions defined?

Last edited by rwd (2009-03-31 19:32:32)

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: [solved] How come x runs as root when I start it as normal user?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setuid

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rwd

Member

Registered: 2009-02-08

Posts: 664

Re: [solved] How come x runs as root when I start it as normal user?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setuid

Thanks.. that seems to explain it.