Re: fast user switching

[Shahms King <shahms shahms com>]

On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 08:12, Shahms King wrote:
> gdmflexiserver already allows you to run arbitrary commands against the
> currently running gdm, so you could really just add another command to
> list users . . .
> 
> Ultimately, this needs more integration between gdm and the
> gnome-xscreensaver-replacement-whatever-it-may-be
> 
> On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 14:56, Isaac Clerencia wrote:
> > On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 23:08, Carlos Perelló Marín wrote:
> > > El dom, 30-11-2003 a las 22:31, Rodrigo Moya escribió:
> > 
> > AFAIK GDM opens a Unix socket in /tmp/.gdm-socket, may be it is
> > possible to ask for connected users using that socket.
> > 
> > What is this socket exactly used for?

Sorry to respond to my own post (and I might as well actually answer the
"what is this socket used for" while I'm at it . . .)

The socket is used to communicate with the display manager and is used
by the frontend (the actual login screen, etc.) for getting the list of
users, passing auth information back and forth, etc.  It is also used by
gdmflexiserver for starting new logins, etc.  More importantly (for this
discussion) is the 'CONSOLE_SERVERS' command which will list all of the
users and the consoles they are logged in on.  It doesn't list xdmcp or
xnest logins.  Given that you can't switch to those anyway, it doesn't
really matter.  In order to make user switching work with those we need
more complicated methods anyway (need to be able to disconnect from one
X-server and reconnect to another, aka "migration" which supposedly
works with Gtk+ apps, although I've never seen a demo nor a description
of how to do it . . .)
-- 
Shahms King <shahms shahms com>