How do i start a kde-session from shell for ANOTHER user?

[qeldroma]

Aim is to start up a workstation without XDMCP-Management, menaing without KDM/GDM/XDM/MDKDM.

 

I don't need them, am the only user. How do i start up a KDE-session with a specified user from root (init)?

 

I tried to do it like this:

su TheUser --command=startx

 

This fails with the error, that i am probably not owning the console i am doing this.

 

How do i manipulate this? How do i substitute "X &; startkde" to an user?

[MottS]

I guess you have to log in a linux shell as the user you want (Press CTRL-ALT-F2 for instance and log in). Now startx as follow:

startx -- :1

Now go in your new X session by pressing CTRL-ALT-F8. The original X session is at CTRL-ALT-F7 (the one that starts automatically at boot).

 

MOttS

[theYinYeti]

I think you may find valuable ideas in this thread: http://mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=4673

Adapt it a bit, and you should have a working machine.

 

Just an idea, to put in /etc/profile (which, according to bash's man page, is "The systemwide initialization file, executed for login shells") on the server:

currentD=$(echo $DISPLAY | sed 's/^.*:([0-9]*).*$/1/')

if [ $(currentD:-0) -gt 9 ]; then

 ( $HOME/.xinitrc || /usr/X11R6/bin/icewm ) &

fi

It is not tested. It's just roughly the idea.

 

Yves.

[qeldroma]

Thanks but i was too fast, solved it on my own :mrgreen:

 

Following my /etc/X11/prefdm:

 

#!/bin/sh



PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

HOME=/root

export HOME



# We need to source this so that the login screens get translated

[ -f /etc/profile.d/10lang.sh ] && . /etc/profile.d/10lang.sh



# trap SIGTERM to be able to kill autologin

killed () {

   kill -15 $!

   exit

}



trap killed 15



X -ac & sleep 2

export DISPLAY=":0"

echo -n $! >/var/lock/subsys/dm

su - MyUser -c startkde && ps aux |kill `awk '/X / {print $2}'`

exit 0

 

I added automatically closing of X with kde-shutdown.[/code]

[aru]

...Just an idea, to put in /etc/profile (which, according to bash's man page, is "The systemwide initialization file, executed for login shells") on the server...

 

The right syntax should be:

if [ ${currentD:-0} -gt 9 ]; then

with '{' instead of "("

 

But that will be buggy if you login when you already are in X (ie: "su -"); I think I don't understand why If you actually have a DISPLAY would you want to start it again.

 

I suggest another control level, to check if you are already in X or not (you can do it also with $(tty) instead of $TERM):

 

case $TERM in

     *xterm|rxvt) :;; #Do nothing, we are already in X

     *) YOURCODE;; # We are at VT and we want to go into X.

esac

 

That will also be buggy if we log into a VT when there is already an X session used on VT7 (display :0)

 

So my advice will be not to put such code in /etc/profile, unless you develop it a little bit more to include checks for letting bash know which is your environment and wich X-VT are free to start them.

[theYinYeti]

The right syntax should be [...] with '{' instead of "("

Yes, you're right ! I typed too fast

But that will be buggy if you login when you already are in X (ie: "su -"); I think I don't understand why If you actually have a DISPLAY would you want to start it again.

Actually, I don't start X again; just the window manager, and optionnaly additionnal apps. It is a kind of follow-up to the thread I refered to. In this thread, we discuss a remote X display via only SSH (no XDMCP). The process is to start X (nothing else), then login via SSH with X11-forwarding, and then remotely start the window manager.

You can recognize this setup because SSH creates a proxy-display for the user on the server; this proxy-display is "localhost:10.0" or further.

 

But my previous post was crude at best, and I know it. It needs refining. But I know that qeldroma is a capable person :)

 

Yves.

[aru]

My fault, I should have paid more attention to know what you were talking about ;)

[qeldroma]

Oh, my script fails in a special way:

 

When i am starting it DIRECTLY, it works well.

After having booted, i can manually switch "init 5" and it does. But when i am Restarting the machine in "init 5", the dm-service fails, the screen flashes some times, i can see the X, but after the 4. -5. flash, i am back to console.

 

Waiting some seconds and starting "prefdm" manually works then again?!

[aru]

I suggest you to do a little of debugin to your script to see what does wrong; start your script using the -x or -xv flags and redirect the stderr to a file:

#! /bin/sh -x

exec 2> /home/username/debug-$(date +%s).txt

 

or if you want to be more polite:

#! /bin/sh

exec 2> /home/username/debug-$(date +%s).txt

set -x

 

 

Check "/home/username/debug-XXXXXX.txt" after each scenario to see what (or if something) makes the difference in your script