Re: Xwindows security?

Rens Troost (rens@imsi.com)
Wed, 11 Jan 1995 10:19:41 -0500

>>>>> "Jon" == Jon Peatfield <J.S.Peatfield@amtp.cam.ac.uk> writes:

  Jon> Ident is not supposed to be used for authentication I hear
  Jon> people shout.  However, X connections should really only be
  Jon> made from machines you trust as otherwise anyone with root
  Jon> access can steal the cookie or pretend to be that user anyway.
  Jon> I.e. using Ident for this is no worse than admitting that you
  Jon> must trust the remote host is ok anyway.

Right; and it's also no better. But it _is_ more complicated. The
magic cookie mechanism is pretty good; if it would allow mutiple
cookies access to the server, or krb5 authentication,  we'd have all
the machanism we needed, fairly simply.

-Rens