Tag: x11

xauth: unable to open tmp file and unable to write authority file error messages

/usr/X11R6/bin/xauth: unable to open tmp file “/home/user/.Xauthority-n”
/usr/X11R6/bin/xauth: unable to write authority file /home/user/.Xauthority-

/usr/X11R6/bin/xauth: error in locking authority file /home/user/.Xauthority

This error usually happens when you are not able to create a file on your home directory

user@linux:~ $ touch /home/user/.Xauthority
touch: cannot touch `/home/user/.Xauthority’: No space left on device

Checking the space utilization on this filesystem we see that we have some space left

root@linux:~ # df -h /home
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-home
6.9G 4.8G 1.9G 73% /home

This error was solved when I deleted some files on this filesystem. There were a lot of small log files that occupied all the inodes on the filesystem

root@linux:~ # df -i /home
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-home
917504 917504 0 100% /home

Xlib: PuTTY X11 proxy: wrong authentication protocol attempted

I had this weird error when trying to start an X11 application.

oracle@dbserver:~ $ xclock
xlib: connection to “localhost:12.0” refused by server
Xlib: PuTTY X11 proxy: wrong authentication protocol attempted
Error: Can’t open display: localhost:12.0

Next you try the steps described here to transfer the authorization to the other account. But if you follow the steps and it simply doesnt work, check the filesystem where the home directory is.

oracle@dbserver:~ $ df -h .
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/rootvg-homelv
9.9G  9.4G  128K 100% /home

In this particular machine, I was having the authentication protocol error because the OS couldn’t update the .Xauthority file in the home directory.