X authorization problems in a mobile environment

[Egbert Eich]

Keith Packard writes:
 > On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 12:36 +0200, Egbert Eich wrote:
 > 
 > > 
 > > Right. The purpose of my email to the architecture mailing list was to
 > > get some feedback if people find the approach objectionable or have
 > > better ideas.
 > > I personally prefer it over background applications that mess with
 > > configuration file entries.
 > 
 > How about changing the .Xauthority file so we have a 'wildcard'
 > hostname? Then we write out two entries, the one with the real hostname
 > and one with the wildcard hostname.
 > 
 > The reader then tries to find the real hostname, failing that, the
 > wildcard entry.
 > 
 > This will only fail if the hostname changes while sharing home
 > directories over NFS; I suggest that this case is not common...

Thought about something like this too. The wildcard entry would get
rewritten whenever a new entry for localhost is added. Removal would
be difficult as you would have to compare the 'payload' or you don't
care to leave a stale wildcard entry behind. 
Also I wanted to avoid such ambiguities as they still leave 'holes'
behind - cases in which the solution may not work.

Cheers,
	Egbert.