Moblin Will Run X Server As Logged-In User, Not Root

nerdyH writes "An architect of the Moblin Project has announced that Moblin 2.0 for netbooks and nettops is the first Linux distribution to run the X server as the logged-in user, rather than SUID'd to root. The fix to this decades-old security liability comes thanks to 'NRX' (No-root X) technology reportedly developed by Intel, Red Hat, and others in the X community, and the Moblin-sponsored 'Secure X' project. Besides making Linux netbooks a lot more snoop-proof, it seems like this could lead to an X-hosting renaissance of sorts, since you wouldn't be risking the whole system just to open up a specific user's account to remote X servers."

Comments

Is this right ?

[bytesex]

I am not sure that this is the right solution. Not running it as root is good, but running it as me - I don't know. I'd rather that the user that runneth the X server is some sort of 'xserver' user - to whose process I connect. That 'xserver' user then has the right to push my screen into VGA mode and all that. Also, this doesn't fix all those other services (that gnome has, for example) that allow my X programs to mount stuff etc. Which is, again, a security risk by itself.