* Haines Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [13/11/2004 2011EST]:
>

[...]

> Xsession: X session started for brownh at ...
> open: Permission denied
> 
> However, user can start the x server to bring up a graphical xterm by
> doing: 
> 
> $ xinit 
> 

[...]

> The "classic" reason for the problem is apparently having the wrong
> permissions for the /var directory. However, there is no apparent
> ownership or permission problem that I can see. Debian sarge installed
> /var with:   
> 
> drwxr-xr-x root root
> 
> However, people are often told that the permissions should be:
> 
> drwxrwxrwt

Mode 1777 on /var/ ?  Hrmmmm... I don't know of any filesystem hierarchy
standard that calls for 1777 on /var/.  /var/tmp/, sure, but not /var/.
/var/ has always been 0755 as far as I can remember. :)

Given your 'man' example below, I suspect that permissions on one or more
temp directories are screwed.  Check permissions on such dirs as /tmp/,
/var/tmp/, perhaps even /usr/tmp/.  All should be 1777.  If they are
mounted as a 'tmpfs' filesystem you will get this 1777 mode
automagically.

> I tried that, but without luck either. I suspect Debian is just being
> a bit different from the norm here, for the first set of permissions
> works fine on my current system (debian sarge, kernel 2.4.18-bf2.4).
> 
> Significantly, the user can write to the directory:
> 
> $ touch /var/test
> 
> but can't do:
> 
> $ man man
> 
> because:  
> 
> ...
> write(2, "man: ", 5)                    = 5
> write(2, "can\'t create a temporary filenam"..., 33) = 33
> write(2, ": Permission denied", 19)     = 19
> write(2, "\n", 1)                       = 1
> 
> The user command:
> 
> $ echo $HOME
> /home/brownh
> 
> Here's the full XFree86.0.log (it reports no errors).  

[...]

> Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!

Well this line claims your X server was trying to grab fonts from a
local font server (xfs) which probably wasn't running.  You might want
to check this out too.

-- 
Keith R. John Warno (SA)                       |<   /\   Y   /\   >|
www.kayakinteractive.com                       I n t e r a c t i v e
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