http://wiki.docking.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=How_to_access_X11_Forwarding_after_becoming_root 2026-04-09T19:39:54Z Revision history for this page on the wiki MediaWiki 1.39.1 http://wiki.docking.org/index.php?title=How_to_access_X11_Forwarding_after_becoming_root&diff=10134&oldid=prev 2017-06-06T23:49:29Z

<p>how to troubleshoot x11 issues after sudo/su</p> <p><b>New page</b></p><div>We&#039;re used to activating X11 forwarding when we SSH into a remote host. Everyone knows it by now:<br /> ssh -X [or -Y] user@remotehost<br /> <br /> Though sometimes, we have to become root and use a graphical program afterwards. You may know that after becoming root through sudo or su, X11 doesn&#039;t work anymore. You get an error that looks like this: <br /> -sh-4.1$ sudo -i<br /> [sudo] password for generic_user: <br /> [root@vav ~]# virt-manager<br /> X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.<br /> Unable to initialize GTK: could not open display<br /> <br /> This is because root does not have the same .Xauthority contents as the user who originally SSH&#039;d in. <br /> If you want to activate X11 forwarding, you&#039;ll have to copy the contents of the user&#039;s .Xauthority file into root&#039;s .Xauthority file.<br /> [root@vav ~]# xauth add $(xauth -f ~generic_user/.Xauthority list | tail -1)<br /> <br /> <br /> [[Category:Sysadmin]]</div>

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