Getting X11 to work in sudo and ssh

[anodos]

I'd like to be able to do something like this:

me@mymachine:~$ sudo su -
Password:
root@mymachine:~# kwrite test.txt

and have KWrite come up. However, I get this error:

kwrite: cannot connect to X server

Also, I'd like to be able to do this as well:

me@mymachine:~$ ssh someuser@somemachine
someuser@somemachine's password:
...
[someuser@somemachine ~]$ kwrite test.txt

But I get the exact same error

How do I setup sudo to work with my desktop? As for ssh, I can get that to work if I remember to pass in -X to the ssh command. However, I didn't have to do this with my Mandrake install, so what's the difference?

Thanks,
Anodos

[sky]

Re: Getting X11 to work in sudo and ssh

In fact, you can do it in 2 ways :
kdesu kwrite test.txt
or
ssh -X someone@somemachine

Hope it helped

[mchuskie]

Re: Getting X11 to work in sudo and ssh

An explanation (this is how I see it, at least): When you sudo <command>, the system executes that command as if the user root has entered it. So if that command involves a program interacting with X (the windowing system), it looks for the X server that root is logged on to... and of course it doesn't find it because root is not logged on to an X server. Using kdesu avoids this problem.

Ah, the joy of X-forwarding over SSH! If -X doesn't work try -Y.