On Mon, 21 Sep 2020 19:36:33 -0700
Marc Shapiro via Dng <dng@???> wrote:


> Boot and login went fine.  Starting Xorg, not so well.  Tried all
> three users with no luck.  This worked before the upgrade.  Tried as
> root. Success!  So root can start Xorg, but not an ordinary user.
> Any ideas what might be wrong.

Hi Marc,

I don't use Devuan much, and haven't used Debian since March 2015, but
I have some ideas from my general wanderings through Linux.

First of all, there's an ancient fix, passed from father to son
throughout the ages, of making X or Xorg or one of the shellscripts
that calls it suid root.

Second, a more security-respecting solution is there might be a group,
to which your users can belong, that allows them to run X. Perhaps
group video ??? I just looked at /usr/bin/Xorg on my Void box and it's
not suid anything. I performed some ls commands that show no suid
owner, group or everyone that pertain to X:

================================================================
[slitt@mydesk trumptoll]$ ls -l /usr/bin | grep -v ^[-ld]
total 3005208
[slitt@mydesk trumptoll]$ ls -l /usr/bin | grep -v ^...[-x]
total 3005208
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         71960 Feb 14  2020 chage
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         39056 Jul 29 10:50 chfn
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         30864 Jul 29 10:50 chsh
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         30768 Jan 20  2019 contain
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         22592 Jan  1  2019 dcrontab
---s--x--x 1 root root         43176 Feb  3  2020 doas
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         26984 Feb 14  2020 expiry
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         34952 Jan  5  2019 fusermount
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         34968 Jun 17 16:15 fusermount3
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         67704 Feb 14  2020 gpasswd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         55360 Jul  4 19:09 ksu
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         59536 Jul 29 10:50 mount
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root         43864 Dec 25  2019 mount.cifs
-rws--x--x 1 root root        129824 Jul 20 14:05 mount.nfs
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         37208 Feb 14  2020 newgidmap
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         14480 Jul 29 10:50 newgrp
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         37208 Feb 14  2020 newuidmap
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         59760 Feb 14  2020 passwd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         30784 Aug  8  2019 pkexec
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         48832 Jun 27  2017 pmount
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         22576 Jan 20  2019 pseudo
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         35200 Jun 27  2017 pumount
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root        470104 Feb  7  2020 screen-4.8.0
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         40488 Feb 14  2020 sg
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         14456 Nov 21  2016 slock
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         18528 Jul  4 07:25
spice-client-glib-usb-acl-helper -rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         71824
Jul 29 10:50 su ---s--x--x 1 root root        161904 Jul 23 17:13 sudo
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root        116888 Nov 29  2018 udevil
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         34960 Jul 29 10:50 umount
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root         38984 Mar 20  2019 unix_chkpwd
-rwsr-x--- 1 root xbuilder     22616 Jul  2 10:57 xbps-uchroot
[slitt@mydesk trumptoll]$ ls -l /usr/bin | grep -v ^......[-x]
total 3005208
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root cgred        14496 Oct 16  2018 cgexec
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root _mlocate     39064 Sep  7  2018 mlocate
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root root        497616 Apr 27 05:38 mlterm
-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root         43864 Dec 25  2019 mount.cifs
-r-xr-sr-x 1 root _smtpq      228176 Jul  4 19:09 smtpctl
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root tty          34960 Jul 29 10:50 wall
-rwxr-sr-x 1 root tty          22672 Jul 29 10:50 write
[slitt@mydesk trumptoll]$ 
================================================================

I don't have time right now to remove myself from group video, kill X,
re-login, run X, and see if I can't run X, but I think group video is
something to check.

SteveT

Steve Litt
Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive