About
After making a connection, you shows X windows by following for instance this article: X11 - How to display remote clients (such as firefox, installation screen) with the X Server CygwinX ?.
But when you change of user with the su command, you got .
su - oracle
Error: Can't open display:
There is no display You then go back to the original session, get the display, log as the other and set the display
>exit
logout
>echo $DISPLAY
localhost:10.0
>su - oracle
/home/oracle >export DISPLAY=localhost:10.0
But when trying to start a X windows, we get an authorization problem
/home/oracle >xlogo
Xlib: connection to "localhost:10.0" refused by server
Xlib: PuTTY X11 proxy: Authorisation not recognised
Error: Can't open display: localhost:10.0
The Solution
You need for each new su session to set:
- the DISPLAY
- and the authorization cookie
Example
- From the original user, get the display
echo $DISPLAY
localhost:10.0
- From the original user, get the magic cookie. This is the last on on the list
xauth list
euramsodw011.hotitem.local/unix:12 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 7bb18f920440391643b12a1467764e8e
euramsodw011.hotitem.local/unix:13 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 d6ac161e55a0a7c320908cd35d1b8391
euramsodw011.hotitem.local/unix:11 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 bae3fc9da4d089b69aa98a84238fc7bc
euramsodw011.hotitem.local/unix:10 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 937b307935d2485e773970b48bb21eaf
From my colleague, Pepijn Dekker, in order to get the cookie statement (with grep and awk)
xauth list | grep unix:`echo $DISPLAY | awk -F: '{print $2}' | awk -F. '{print $1}'` | awk '{print "xauth add " $0}'
xauth add euramsodw011.hotitem.local/unix:10 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 937b307935d2485e773970b48bb21eaf
- su the user that you want to impersonate, set the display and add the cookie, start an x windows
su - oracle
export DISPLAY=localhost:10.0
xauth add euramsodw011.hotitem.local/unix:10 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 937b307935d2485e773970b48bb21eaf
xclock
- And you see the xclock as the impersonate user
