XHOST(1) User Commands XHOST(1)

NAME

xhost - server access control program for X

SYNOPSIS

xhost [[+-]name ...]

DESCRIPTION

The xhost program is used to add and delete host names or user names
to the list allowed to make connections to the X server. In the case
of hosts, this provides a rudimentary form of privacy control and
security. It is only sufficient for a workstation (single user)
environment, although it does limit the worst abuses. Environments
which require more sophisticated measures should implement the user-
based mechanism or use the hooks in the protocol for passing other
authentication data to the server.

OPTIONS

Xhost accepts the following command line options described below.
For security, the options that affect access control may only be run
from the "controlling host". For workstations, this is the same
machine as the server. For X terminals, it is the login host.

-help Prints a usage message.

[+]name The given name (the plus sign is optional) is added to the
list allowed to connect to the X server. The name can be a
host name or a complete name (See NAMES for more details).

-name The given name is removed from the list of allowed to connect
to the server. The name can be a host name or a complete
name (See NAMES for more details). Existing connections are
not broken, but new connection attempts will be denied. Note
that the current machine is allowed to be removed; however,
further connections (including attempts to add it back) will
not be permitted. Resetting the server (thereby breaking all
connections) is the only way to allow local connections
again.

+ Access is granted to everyone, even if they aren't on the
list (i.e., access control is turned off).

- Access is restricted to only those on the list (i.e., access
control is turned on).

nothing If no command line arguments are given, a message indicating
whether or not access control is currently enabled is
printed, followed by the list of those allowed to connect.
This is the only option that may be used from machines other
than the controlling host.

NAMES

A complete name has the syntax ``family:name'' where the families are
as follows:

inet Internet host (IPv4)
inet6 Internet host (IPv6)
dnet DECnet host
nis Secure RPC network name
krb Kerberos V5 principal
local contains only one name, the empty string
si Server Interpreted

The family is case insensitive. The format of the name varies with
the family.

When Secure RPC is being used, the network independent netname (e.g.,
"nis:unix.uid@domainname") can be specified, or a local user can be
specified with just the username and a trailing at-sign (e.g.,
"nis:pat@").

For backward compatibility with pre-R6 xhost, names that contain an
at-sign (@) are assumed to be in the nis family. Otherwise they are
assumed to be Internet addresses. If compiled to support IPv6, then
all IPv4 and IPv6 addresses returned by getaddrinfo(3) are added to
the access list in the appropriate inet or inet6 family.

The local family specifies all the local connections at once.
However, the server interpreted address "si:localuser:username" can
be used to specify a single local user. (See the Xsecurity(7) manual
page for more details.)

Server interpreted addresses consist of a case-sensitive type tag and
a string representing a given value, separated by a colon. For
example, "si:hostname:almas" is a server interpreted address of type
hostname, with a value of almas. For more information on the
available forms of server interpreted addresses, see the Xsecurity(7)
manual page.

The initial access control list for display number n may be set by
the file /etc/Xn.hosts, where n is the display number of the server.
See Xserver(1) for details.

DIAGNOSTICS

For each name added to the access control list, a line of the form
"name being added to access control list" is printed. For each name
removed from the access control list, a line of the form "name being
removed from access control list" is printed.

SEE ALSO

X(7), Xsecurity(7), Xserver(1), xdm(1), xauth(1), getaddrinfo(3)

ENVIRONMENT

DISPLAY to get the default host and display to use.

BUGS

You can't specify a display on the command line because -display is a
valid command line argument (indicating that you want to remove the
machine named ``display'' from the access list).

The X server stores network addresses, not host names, unless you use
the server-interpreted hostname type address. If somehow you change
a host's network address while the server is still running, and you
are using a network-address based form of authentication, xhost must
be used to add the new address and/or remove the old address.

AUTHORS

Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science,
Jim Gettys, MIT Project Athena (DEC).

X Version 11 xhost 1.0.10 XHOST(1)