Re: User-level Tasks in Hotplug Scripts?

[David Brownell <david-b pacbell net>]

> So the issue is fundamentally one of authenticating
> the configuration GUI's process to the X server to allow connection.

There are several ways to factor the connection problem,
and that isn't an issue in all of them ... you may be assuming
the hotplug agent calls something that tries to talk X directly.
That's not the only solution.

My original post mentioned one alternative, which doesn't
go that route (and doesn't have that problem):  talking to
some intermediary (perhaps using CORBA) which starts
with that X server (or whatever) privilege.  I seem to recall
many X-based desktops assuming such a component, to
handle things like "start the right app for this document".
Very much like "start the right config gui for this alert."

Admittedly there's an analagous problem in that case.
The hotplug agent runs as root, and it had sure better
be able to authenticate to that intermediary.  I'm just saying
it's not "fundamentally" an X11 authentication issue.


When I've thought about this before, I've ended up with
the notion that the desktop needs some way to say
"notify <agent addr='...'/> when ..." as it starts up, and
for that information to be available to hotplug agents
(running as root) in some trustworthy manner.

I think that's what Oliver was saying when he suggested
starting some server at user login.


> The other issue is how to associate the correct X display server with the
> hotplug event, so that the correct user is notified.  As I pointed out,
> this is not necessarily local to the machine where the hotplug occurred.

If that "notify <agent addr='...'/> when ..." stuff generalizes,
and the hotplug agent knows how to interpret it, there's
no reason it wouldn't work neatly over a network.  It could
be an X11-specfic thing, though I'd certainly prefer that
not be a requirement.

And if the convention whereby the hotplug agents access
that data is reasonable, it would expose whether a given
system is a "single user PC/Workstation" configuration,
or a multi-user one that might need more intelligence to
dispatch such events to the listeners.

In the cases where the remote (or even local) agent can
handle the configuration event/alert without needing any
user interaction at all, I'd think it would be desirable to
design things up so that X isn't a hard requirement.

- Dave