Xdec, Xserver - X Window System server
Xdec [-option...]
The X server accepts the following command line options:
Sets pointer acceleration (that is, the ratio of how much
is reported to how much the user actually moved the
pointer). Disables host-based access control mechanisms.
Enables access by any host, and permits any host to modify
the access control list. Use with extreme caution. This
option exists primarily for running test suites remotely.
Sets the audit trail level. The default level is 1, meaning
only connection rejections are reported. Level 2
additionally reports all successful connections and disconnections.
Level 0 turns off the audit trail. Audit
lines are sent as standard error output. Sets the XKB
autorepeat delay to the specified number. The delay number
can be a range of 0-1000. Sets the XKB autorepeat delay
to the specified number. The interval number can be a
range of 0-1000. Specifies a file which contains a collection
of authorization records used to authenticate
access. See also the xdm(1X) and Xsecurity(1X) manual
pages. Disables certain kinds of error checking, for bug
compatibility with previous releases (for example, to work
around bugs in R2 and R3 xterms and toolkits). Use of
this option is not recommended. Disables backing store
support on all screens. Turns off key-click. Sets the
key-click volume (allowable range: 0-100). Sets the
visual class for the root window of color screens. The
class numbers are those specified in the X protocol. This
option is not obeyed by all servers. Sets the name of the
RGB color database. Causes the server to generate a core
dump on fatal errors. Defines the number of cache units.
The minimum (and also default) value is 1024. If you
specify a value lower than 1024, font caching is disabled.
For an ideographic language, the recommended value is the
lowest multiple of 1024 that accommodates the number of
frequently used characters in that language.
If a workstation displays multiple ideographic languages
simultaneously, you have to add together the
values required for each language. Specify an even
larger value if you intend to run applications,
such as desktop publishing software, that require
multiple font styles and sizes for each ideographic
character. For more details, see Writing Software
for the International Market. Defines the size of
each cache unit. The minimum value for unit size
is 31 bytes; the default value is 128 bytes. If
you specify a value lower than 31 bytes, the value
has no effect. If a particular font requires more
memory space than 128 bytes, the font-cache mechanism
automatically allocates one or more additional
units to store its glyphs. For more details, see
Writing Software for the International Market.
Defere loading of no, all, or 16-nit glyphs.
Enables the VESA Display Power Management Signalling
(DPMS) features of the X Server regardless
of the operating system's power management state.
DPMS mode defaults are dictated by the kernel's
power management subsystem. DPMS should only be
enabled for systems with DPMS-compliant hardware.
Disables the VESA DPMS features of the X Server
regardless of the operating system's power management
state. DPMS mode defaults are dictated by the
kernel's power management subsystem. Sets the bell
volume (allowable range: 0-100). Sets the default
cursor font. Sets the default font. Sets the
search path for fonts. This path is a comma separated
list of directories which the X server
searches for font databases. All components of the
list must be valid font directories or the X server
will exit, not finding the default font.
It is recommended that you not use this option
because of the problems caused by an invalid font
path. If you install a new set of fonts, it is
best to specify the font path in a start-up file
such as Xsession or using the xset +fp command.
Then, if the font path is invalid for any reason,
the X server will still run. Specifies the name of
a configuration file that defines the code sets and
character associations for glyph caching when the X
server reads fonts from a font server. The default
cache-config file is /usr/var/X11/fs/fs_cache_config.
If this configuration file is defined or if
the default fs_cache_config file exists, glyph
caching will be enabled when the X server is reading
from a font server for those fonts whose code
sets are specified in the file. Prints a usage
message. Causes all remaining command line arguments
to be ignored. Enables use of the lowbandwidth
extension of the X server. The Low Bandwidth
X (LBX) extension defines compression and local
caching techniques that improve performance of X
applications in wide area networks and across slow
speed network connections. Disables use of the
lowbandwidth extension of the X server. Sets the
data space limit of the server to the specified
number of kilobytes. A value of zero makes the
data size as large as possible. The default value
of -1 leaves the data space limit unchanged. Sets
the number-of-open-files limit of the server to the
specified number. A value is zero makes the limit
as large as possible. The default value of -1
leaves the limit unchanged. Sets the stack space
limit of the server to the specified number of
kilobytes. A value of zero makes the stack size as
large as possible. The default value of -1 leaves
the stack space limit unchanged. Turns on the X
Window System logo display in the screen-saver.
There is currently no way to change this setting
from a client. Turns off the X Window System logo
display in the screen-saver. There is currently no
way to change this setting from a client. Runs the
Xserver at the specified scheduling priority. The
priority argument is a positive or negative decimal
integer. Positive priority can range from 1 to 19,
where 19 is the lowest priority value. You must
have superuser authority to specify a negative priority
value. Negative values range from -1 to -12,
where -12 is the highest scheduling priority. Uses
the DIGITAL UNIX vendor string, rather than the
Tru64 UNIX vendor string. Sets the screen-saver
pattern cycle time in minutes. Enables the
panoramiX extension which allows a system with multiple
video monitors to operate the monitors as a
single large screen. Disables the panoramiX extension.
Turns off auto-repeat. Turns on autorepeat.
Sets the screen-saver timeout time in minutes.
Enable object reuse. Disable object reuse.
Specifies the file that defines the security policy.
Disables the save under support on all
screens. Sets the pointer acceleration threshold
in pixels (that is, after how many pixels pointer
acceleration should take effect). Causes the
server to terminate at server reset, instead of
continuing to run. Sets the default connection
timeout in seconds. Disables all testing extensions
(for example, XTEST, XTrap, XTestExtension1).
Sets video-off screen-saver preference. Sets
video-on screen-saver preference. Forces the
default backing-store of all windows to be WhenMapped.
This option is a quick way of getting
backing-store to apply to all windows. Loads the
specified extension at initialization. Some extensions
have only a small portion loaded at initialization,
saving memory until the extension is actually
requested. This option forces the complete
loading of the extension at initialization time,
saving a small amount of startup time when the
first request for the extension is made by a client
application. Not all extensions will implement
this feature. Specifies the directory that contains
the Xprint server configuration files.
You can also have the X server connect to xdm using XDMCP.
Although this method is not typically useful as it does
not allow xdm to manage the server process, it can be used
to debug XDMCP implementations, and serves as a sample
implementation of the server side of XDMCP. For more
information on this protocol, see the X Display Manager
Control Protocol specification. The following options control
the behavior of XDMCP. Enables XDMCP and broadcasts
BroadcastQuery packets to the network. The first responding
display manager will be chosen for the session. XDMCP
has an additional display qualifier used in resource
lookup for display-specific options. This option sets
that value. By default, it is "MIT-Unspecified", which is
not very useful. When testing XDM-AUTHENTICATION-1, a
private key is shared between the server and the manager.
This option sets the value of that private data, although
because it is on the command line, it is not very private.
XDMCP-specific value that allows the display manager to
identify each display so that it can locate the shared
key. Enables XDMCP and sends IndirectQuery packets to the
specified host. Causes the X server to terminate after
one session. Uses an alternate port number for XDMCP
packets. Must be specified before any -query, -broadcast,
or -indirect options. Enables XDMCP and sends Query packets
to the specified host.
The following options are for the controlling the loadable
portion of the X server. See the Modular Extensible
Server section for more information. Specifies the name
of a configuration file to use to configure the loadable X
server. The default configuration file is
/usr/lib/X11/Xserver.conf. Specifies the name of an error
file to use to redirect error messages. The default is to
send error messages to standard error. Displays the
libraries specified in the configuration file that will be
used by the loadable server. Displays the default
libraries that will be used by the loadable server. Displays
the merging of the default and configured lists of
libraries, showing the resultant list to be used by the
loadable server.
The following options are device dependent and proprietary.
When the server is run on multiscreen-capable platforms,
selected device-dependent options take an optional
screen-specification argument. Omitting the screen-specification
argument defines the parameter for all available
screens. Specifies the number of buttons on the pointer
device. The default is 3 for a mouse device and 4 for a
tablet device. Sets the color of black pixels for the
screen. The color argument can be a named color from the
rgb database or a number sign (#) followed by a hexadecimal
number. Disable screen n. Sets the dots-per-inch for
the x and y coordinates. Sets the dots-per-inch for the x
coordinates. Sets the dots-per-inch for the y coordinates.
Attaches the bottom edge of the screen specified
by scr1 to the screen specified by scr2. Attaches the
left edge of the screen specified by scr1 to the screen
specified by scr2. Attaches the right edge of the screen
specified by scr1 to the screen specified by scr2.
Attaches the top edge of the screen specified by scr1 to
the screen specified by scr2. Override screen disabling
for screen n. Disable XKB extension. Only enable screen
n. Set screen width and height. List physical screens to
place in logical order. If the screens list does not end
in a period, all physical screens not listed will be added
to the end of the logical order. If the list ends in a
period, all remaining physical screens will be disabled.
Sets the visual class for the root window of the screen.
Possible values are StaticGray, StaticColor, PseudoColor,
GrayScale, TrueColor, and DirectColor. Sets the color of
white pixels for the screen. The syntax for color is the
same as for the argument to the -bp option. Base directory
for XKB layout files. XKB keyboard description to
load on startup. File that contains default XKB keymaps.
This is /usr/lib/X11/xkb/keymaps.dir by default.
The Xdec command starts the X server. The Xdec command
supports the run-time loading and execution of X server
libraries on Tru64 UNIX platforms with graphics devices.
The command loads appropriate libraries to handle graphics
devices installed on the workstation and you can configure
the command to use any or all of the extension libraries
available on your workstation.
The server is usually started from the X Display Manager
program xdm. The xdm daemon, started from the system initialization
script /sbin/rc3.d/S95xlogin, starts the Xdec
command when the system enters multiuser mode. Xdm takes
care of keeping the server running, prompting for usernames
and passwords, and starting up the user sessions.
It is easily configured for sites that want to provide
consistent interfaces for novice users (loading convenient
sets of resources and starting up a window manager, a
clock, and a selection of terminal emulator windows).
When the X server starts up, it takes over the display.
If you are running on a workstation whose console is the
display, you cannot log into the console while the server
is running.
The X server supports connections made using the following
reliable byte-streams: The server listens on port 6000+n,
where n is the display number. The X server uses
/tmp/.X11-unix/Xn as the filename for the socket, where n
is the display number. The X server uses shared memory.
The server responds to connections to object X$Xn, where n
is the display number.
If options not listed in this reference page are used, the
server may fail. Using invalid options for the X server in
the /usr/lib/X11/xdm/Xservers file may cause the X server
to start and fail repetitively.
Multiscreen configurations may contain any configuration
display devices.
To connect two screens, two command line options must be
issued. Attaching two screens using only one -edge_ argument
produces a one-way mouse-travel path. You can create
a wrap-around mouse path by attaching noncontiguous screen
edges. The -edge_ arguments are disabled on single screen
systems.
Nonsensical screen connections are not allowed; the top
edge of a particular screen must be connected with the
bottom edge of another screen, and the right edge of a
particular screen must be connected with the left edge of
another screen. Left and right edges cannot be connected
to top or bottom edges.
The following example specifies that screen 0 has a resolution
of 100x100 dots-per-inch and screen 1 has a resolution
of 75x70 dots-per-inch:
Xdec -dpi0 100 -dpix1 75 -dpiy1 70
If no screen is specified, the value specified is used for
all screens. If the screen resolution is not specified
using command line options, a default value based on pixel
dimensions and screen size is calculated for each screen.
The following example specifies that black pixels on
screen 1 have the hexadecimal value 3a009e005c0 prefixed
with a number sign (#) and white pixels on screen 1 are
color "wheat" from the X rgb color database.
Xdec -bp1 #3a009e005c0 -wp1 wheat
For monochrome display devices, values of 0 and 1 are the
only valid pixel colors.
To specify the default visual class of a root window on a
particular screen, append the screen number (0, 1, or 2)
to the -vclass command line option. Possible visual
classes are: StaticGray, StaticColor, PseudoColor,
GrayScale, TrueColor, and DirectColor. The following
example specifies that the screen 0 root window is a TrueColor
visual, and the screen 1 root window is a PseudoColor
visual.
Xdec -class0 TrueColor -vclass1 PseudoColor
The following example attaches screen 1 above screen 0 and
screen 2 to the right of screen 0 (an L-shaped configuration):
Xdec -edge_top0 1 -edge_bottom1 0 -edge_right0 2
-edge_left2 0
The following example is identical to the default state (a
horizontal line) with the addition of a wraparound from
screen 0 to screen 2:
Xdec -edge_left0 2 -edge_right0 1 -edge_left1 0
-edge_right1 2 \ -edge_left2 1 -edge_right2 0
The X server implements a simplistic authorization protocol,
MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1. This protocol uses data private
to authorized clients and the server. It is a rather
trivial scheme; if the client passes authorization data
that is the same as the server has, it is allowed access.
This scheme is worse than the host-based access control
mechanisms in environments with unsecure networks because
it allows any host to connect, given that it has discovered
the private key. But in many environments, this
level of security is better than the host-based scheme
because it allows access control per-user instead of perhost.
The authorization data is passed to the server in a private
file named with the -auth command line option. Each
time the server is about to accept the first connection
after a reset (or when the server is starting), it reads
this file. If this file contains any authorization
records, the local host is not automatically allowed
access to the server, and only clients which send one of
the authorization records contained in the file in the
connection setup information will be allowed access. See
the Xau(3X) manual page for a description of the binary
format of this file.
The X server also uses a host-based access control list
for deciding whether to accept connections from clients on
a particular machine. If no other authorization mechanism
is being used, this list initially consists of the host on
which the server is running as well as any machines listed
in the file /etc/Xn.hosts, where n is the display number
of the server. Each line of the file should contain
either an Internet hostname (for example,
expo.lcs.mit.edu) or a DECnet hostname in double colon
format (for example, hydra::). There should be no leading
or trailing spaces on any lines. For example:
joesworkstation corporate.company.com star:: bigcpu::
Users can add or remove hosts from this list and enable or
disable access control using the xhost command from the
same machine as the server.
The X server attaches special meaning to the following
signals: This signal causes the server to close all existing
connections, free all resources, and restore all
defaults. It is sent by the display manager whenever the
main user's main application (usually an xterm or window
manager) exits to force the server to clean up and prepare
for the next user. This signal causes the server to exit
cleanly. This signal is used quite differently from
either of the above. When the server starts, it checks to
see if it has inherited SIGUSR1 as SIG_IGN instead of the
usual SIG_DFL. In this case, the server sends a SIGUSR1
to its parent process after it has set up the various connection
schemes. Xdm uses this feature to recognize when
it is possible to connect to the server.
Fonts are usually stored as individual files in directories.
The X server can obtain fonts from directories
and/or from font servers. The list of directories and font
servers the X server uses when trying to open a font is
controlled by the font path. Although most sites will
choose to have the X server start up with the appropriate
font path (using the -fp option described previously), it
can be overridden using the xset program.
The default font path for the X server contains the following
three directories: This directory contains many
miscellaneous bitmap fonts that are useful on all systems.
It contains a family of fixed-width fonts, a family of
fixed-width fonts from Dale Schumacher, several Kana fonts
from Sony Corporation, two JIS Kanji fonts, two Hangul
fonts from Daewoo Electronics, two Hebrew fonts from
Joseph Friedman, the standard cursor font, two cursor
fonts from Digital Equipment Corporation, and cursor and
glyph fonts from Sun Microsystems. It also has various
font name aliases for the fonts, including fixed and variable.
This directory contains bitmap fonts contributed by
Adobe Systems, Inc., Digital Equipment Corporation, Bitstream,
Inc., Bigelow and Holmes, and Sun Microsystems,
Inc. for 75 dots-per-inch displays. An integrated selection
of sizes, styles, and weights are provided for each
family. This directory contains 100 dots-per-inch versions
of some of the fonts in the 75dpi directory.
The following font directories are among those that can be
added to the font path by xdm after it starts the X
server:
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/decwin/75dpi
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/decwin/100dpi
These directories contain the 75dpi fonts and 100dpi fonts
used by the out-of-the-box applications such as dxterm.
This directory contains outline fonts for Bitstream's
Speedo rasterizer. A single font face -- in normal, bold,
italic, and bold italic -- is provided, contributed by
Bitstream, Inc. This directory contains "Type 1"
(PostScript) format outline fonts for IBM's rasterizer.
This directory contains "Type 1" (PostScript) format outline
fonts contributed by Adobe Systems, Inc.
Font databases are created by running the mkfontdir program
in the directory containing the compiled versions of
the fonts (the files). Whenever fonts are added to a
directory, mkfontdir should be rerun so that the server
can find the new fonts. If mkfontdir is not run, the
server will not be able to find any fonts in the directory.
MODULAR EXTENSIBLE SERVER [Toc] [Back] The Xdec command is simply a bootstrap program that loads
the X server components and transfers execution to them.
The command also contains some utility routines to allow
the X server components to load even more components.
The X server is composed of several sections: System components
are the system libraries used for such things as
math routines and DECnet interfaces. Core components form
the core portion of the X server. They include operating
system interfaces, X protocol interfaces, routines for
handling server resources, window trees, fonts, some
generic frame buffer handlers, and routines for interfacing
with the workstation device driver (the interface to
the frame buffers, keyboard, and pointer devices). Device
handler components are made available to the workstation
device driver interface. The interface loads them to handle
specific graphics devices found on the system. The
components contain code for initializing the graphics
devices and for performing specialized drawing operations
tailored for the specific hardware on the device. Extension
components contain the code for X extensions. The
components are loaded by the core components from a configurable
list. Some extensions may only be partially
loaded at server initialization time to save memory. When
the first client requests the use of an extension, the
extension code loads the remainder of the extension and
continues processing the requests. Some extensions may
further load device-specific code to provide special handling
of graphics devices or input devices found on the
system. By default, the core components contain font handling
code for bitmap and some scalable fonts. The core
components can also load additional font renderers to handle
different font formats. One font renderer is a communication
interface to a font server.
When the Xdec command is started, it uses a set of internal
default lists of components to build an X server. It
also reads a system configuration file
(/usr/var/X11/Xserver.conf or the file specified by the
-config option) to supplement or replace components on the
lists. The command loads all system and core components
and then transfers execution to the core components.
Workstation driver interface code in the core components
then queries the system for graphics and input device
types and loads appropriate components from the device and
input lists. If the workstation driver interface cannot
find a component for a device, it will force the X server
to exit. If a graphics device is a generic dumb frame
buffer, the device list should contain an entry mapping
the device type to a generic frame buffer handler (see
below).
The core components then load the list of extensions provided
and initialize the extensions. Some extensions may
load further device-specific components from the sublists
provided to them in the configuration file.
The core components also load any font renderers, transport
handlers, and authorization protocol methods
specified in the configurations.
The X server then begins to accept connections.
When the X server resets itself (usually when the last
client has exited), all extension and font renderer components
are unloaded and then re-initialized when the X
server begins to restart itself. In this way, extensions
or font renderers which have been used can re-install
themselves as small stub components, taking up much less
memory, until they are accessed again. For instance, if
you want to have PostScript or PEX as an available extension
at all times but do not wish to use up memory, they
might be loaded initially as a stub component, taking up
only a fraction of their total required memory. When you
run a client that needs to use them, the full extension is
used. When you have finished using that client, you can
log out of your session (if using xdm) which will reset
the X server, unload the full extension, and reinstall
only the stub component until you need to use the extension
again, leaving memory for other uses.
CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX [Toc] [Back] The configuration file syntax is quite simple. The following
are key tokens recognized by the Xdec command when
reading the file. When ! is encountered, the remainder
of the line is ignored. Comments in the configuration file
should be proceeded on each line by a !. Where component
is one of
system
core
device
extensions
font_renderers
auth_protocols
transports
input
When specifying the keyword replace after the keyword
core, the default list of core X server
libraries is replaced by the configured list. <
library_name library_file_name [ initialization_routine_name
[ device_name ] ] [
sub_library_list ] > Specifies the name of the
library. This name is used to reference internal
data structures within the library and may also be
used to construct the library initialization routine
name. Specifies the name of the file containing
the library. The file is a shared library and
usually has the extension This routine is used to
initialize the component, if appropriate. The system
and core libraries do not have initialization
routines. If no name is specified, the name will be
constructed from the library name. For device handlers
and extension sublists, the device name
matches the name stored on a graphics device option
card. The name is used to match a library to a
graphics device. This name must be provided for
device handler and extension sublist components
that handle graphics devices. Specifies a list of
libraries made available for loading to an extension.
The syntax is the same as the library_list
syntax except that no further sublists are allowed.
Specifies a colon separated list of directories to
search for finding libraries. If the list does not
begin or end with a colon, it will be used as the
exclusive search path for libraries. If the list
begins or ends with a colon, it is either appended
or prepended to the default library search path,
which may either be a default search path as specified
by the system loader or the search path specified
by the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
(See the manpage for /sbin/loader for more
details.) Specifies the list of arguments to be
appended to the command line arguments passed to
the X server. Arguments can span multiple lines and
no parsing is done by the Xdec command. The options
-config and -errorFile are specific to the Xdec
bootstrap command and cannot be specified in the
configuration file.
The Xdec command searches for libraries using the
library_path specified in the configuration file or the
LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Each component in
the colon separated path is searched. In addition, for
each component in the path, the path component/Xserver is
also searched so that X server libraries can be more
neatly maintained in a subdirectory. The default search
path is /usr/shlib/Xserver:/usr/shlib.
The default system installation provides a sample configuration
file /usr/lib/X11/Xserver.conf. It contains comments
and shows examples for setting up library lists,
library sublists, the library search path, and sample
argument lists.
GENERIC FRAME BUFFER HANDLERS [Toc] [Back] If you install a generic frame buffer device that has the
following characteristics, you can handle the frame buffer
with the generic frame buffer handlers provided with the
core X server components: Does not require any initialization
beyond that done by the device driver. Is a continuous
array of packed pixels with a depth of 1, 8, 16, or 32
bits. Can be accessed through the workstation device
driver.
The entries you would need in the configuration file for
initializing the device are as follows for the 1-, 8-,
16-, and 32-bit deep devices, where device_name matches
the moduleID of the graphics device:
< mfb libmfb.so mfbScreenInit device_name > <
cfb libcfb.so cfbScreenInit device_name > <
cfb16 libcfb16.so cfb16ScreenInit device_name > <
cfb32 libcfb32.so cfb32ScreenInit device_name >
If run from xdm, errors are typically logged in the file
/usr/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-errors.
Initial access control list Bitmap font directories Outline
font directories DECwindows font directories Color
database UNIX domain socket Error log file Default configuration
file Loadable components Executable image
X(1X), bdftopcf(1X), mkfontdir(1X), xauth(1X), xdm(1X),
xhost(1X), xset(1X), xsetroot(1X), xterm(1X)
X Window System Protocol, Definition of the Porting Layer
for the X v11 Sample Server, Strategies for Porting the X
v11 Sample Server, Godzilla's Guide to Porting the X V11
Sample Server
Xdec(1X)
[ Back ] |
