On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 12:29 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 9:08 AM, Tom H <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 6:54 PM, ToddAndMargo <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> >>> I can run anything as a regular user but not my apps >>> as root. I am sure a reboot will fix this, but >>> is there a way to fix this without rebooting? >>> >>> This started after I fired up two VM's in KVM >>> >>> # leafpad smb.conf & >>> [1] 16905 >>> [root@localhost samba]# No protocol specified >>> leafpad: Cannot open display: >>> >>> # echo $DISPLAY >>> :0.0 >> >> You need to specify XAUTHORITY= > > Doing a "sudo" or "su" to run things as the root user can also clear > your individual user X settings, as can using ssh to access the local > system as a root user if you do not allow X forwarding. Whether using su or sudo, you can set DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY to those of the user from whom you're switching. I don't use root with GUI apps so this is theoretical knowledge. You could set up a polkit action/policy (mimicking /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/com.ubuntu.update-notifier.policy on my laptop running Ubuntu): <policyconfig> <action id="com.todd.pkexec.leafpad"> <message>Authentication is required to run leafpad as root</message> <icon_name>leafpad</icon_name> <defaults> <allow_any>no</allow_any> <allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive> <allow_active>auth_admin</allow_active> </defaults> <annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.path">/usr/bin/leafpad</annotate> <annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.exec.allow_gui">true</annotate> </action> </policyconfig> And you'll then be able to run (as a member of wheel) "pkexec leafpad &".