[PATCH xinit 0/1] startx: Pass "-nolisten tcp" by default

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

On 09/12/2014 03:46 PM, Mark Kettenis wrote:
>> Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:17:24 +0200
>> From: Hans de Goede <hdegoede at redhat.com>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 09/12/2014 11:12 AM, Mark Kettenis wrote:
>>>> From: Hans de Goede <hdegoede at redhat.com>
>>>> Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 09:25:17 +0200
>>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> After doing the 1.3.4 release yesterday, I've started working on updating the
>>>> Fedora packages to 1.3.4. While looking at our open bug list against xinit,
>>>> I found one bug which is not yet resolved in 1.3.4 .
>>>>
>>>> This patch fixes this, I realize that this is a behavior change, and as such
>>>> may be a bit controversial, but I really believe that in this day and age
>>>> "-nolisten tcp" by default is the right thing to do.
>>>
>>> You're probably right.  However instead of fixing this in each and
>>> every bit of code that starts and X server, wouldn't it make more
>>> sense to simply change the default in the X server itself and add the
>>> -listen option there to override things?
>>
>> I was thinking the same thing while working on this patch, the problem
>> is that most bits of code starting the xserver have already been patched
>> to start it with "-nolisten tcp", and have their own config file options /
>> cmdline options to override this.
>>
>> Changing the server would break all this, where as just changing startx
>> keeps all of the existing other xserver "starters" working.
> 
> I don't see how this would break things.

User is using e.g. gdm to start the xserver, user wants the server to
listen on tcp, has added necessary gdm magic to not make gdm pass "-nolisten tcp",
user all of a sudden gets "-nolisten tcp" regardless because that is now the
default.

Fixing this would require patching gdm, to pass the new -listen option to the
server when the user has requested to not pass -nolisten in gdm.conf.

And then the same for any other app starting the xserver which already passes
-nolisten tcp by default + and has an app specific way to tell the app to not
do that.

> Just make sure that
> "-nolisten tcp" continues to be accepted by the xserver.  It will
> become a no-op of course.  Unless perhaps you do something silly as
> starting the xserver with "-listen tcp -nolisten tcp".

There is no such option as -listen (at least not according to man Xserver),
I've added one to startx, which negates startx's adding of "-nolisten tcp"

Regards,

Hans