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XSERVER(1) XSERVER(1)

NAME
Xserver - X Window System display server

SYNOPSIS
X [option ...]

DESCRIPTION
X is the generic name for the X Window System display server. It is frequently a link or a copy of the appropriate
server binary for driving the most frequently used server on a given machine.

STARTING THE SERVER
The X server is usually started from the X Display Manager program xdm(1) or a similar display manager program. This
utility is run from the system boot files and takes care of keeping the server running, prompting for usernames and pass-
words, and starting up the user sessions.

Installations that run more than one window system may need to use the xinit(1) utility instead of a display manager.
However, xinit is to be considered a tool for building startup scripts and is not intended for use by end users. Site
administrators are strongly urged to use a display manager, or build other interfaces for novice users.

The X server may also be started directly by the user, though this method is usually reserved for testing and is not rec-
ommended for normal operation. On some platforms, the user must have special permission to start the X server, often
because access to certain devices (e.g. /dev/mouse) is restricted.

When the X server starts up, it typically takes over the display. If you are running on a workstation whose console is
the display, you may not be able to log into the console while the server is running.

OPTIONS
Many X servers have device-specific command line options. See the manual pages for the individual servers for more
details; a list of server-specific manual pages is provided in the SEE ALSO section below.

All of the X servers accept the command line options described below. Some X servers may have alternative ways of pro-
viding the parameters described here, but the values provided via the command line options should override values speci-
fied via other mechanisms.

:displaynumber
The X server runs as the given displaynumber, which by default is 0. If multiple X servers are to run simultane-
ously on a host, each must have a unique display number. See the DISPLAY NAMES section of the X(7) manual page
to learn how to specify which display number clients should try to use.

-a number
sets pointer acceleration (i.e. the ratio of how much is reported to how much the user actually moved the
pointer).

-ac 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.

-audit level
sets the audit trail level. The default level is 1, meaning only connection rejections are reported. Level 2
additionally reports all successful connections and disconnects. Level 4 enables messages from the SECURITY
extension, if present, including generation and revocation of authorizations and violations of the security pol-
icy. Level 0 turns off the audit trail. Audit lines are sent as standard error output.

-auth authorization-file
specifies a file which contains a collection of authorization records used to authenticate access. See also the
xdm(1) and Xsecurity(7) manual pages.

-br sets the default root window to solid black instead of the standard root weave pattern. This is the default
unless -retro or -wr is specified.

-bs disables backing store support on all screens.

-c turns off key-click.

c volume
sets key-click volume (allowable range: 0-100).

-cc class
sets the visual class for the root window of color screens. The class numbers are as specified in the X proto-
col. Not obeyed by all servers.

-core causes the server to generate a core dump on fatal errors.

-deferglyphs whichfonts
specifies the types of fonts for which the server should attempt to use deferred glyph loading. whichfonts can
be all (all fonts), none (no fonts), or 16 (16 bit fonts only).

-dpi resolution
sets the resolution for all screens, in dots per inch. To be used when the server cannot determine the screen
size(s) from the hardware.

dpms enables DPMS (display power management services), where supported. The default state is platform and configura-
tion specific.

-dpms disables DPMS (display power management services). The default state is platform and configuration specific.

-extensionextensionName
disables named extension. If an unknown extension name is specified, a list of accepted extension names is
printed.

+extensionextensionName
enables named extension. If an unknown extension name is specified, a list of accepted extension names is
printed.

-f volume
sets feep (bell) volume (allowable range: 0-100).

-fc cursorFont
sets default cursor font.

-fn font
sets the default font.

-fp fontPath
sets the search path for fonts. This path is a comma separated list of directories which the X server searches
for font databases. See the FONTS section of this manual page for more information and the default list.

-help prints a usage message.

-I causes all remaining command line arguments to be ignored.

-maxbigreqsize size
sets the maximum big request to size MB.

-nocursor
disable the display of the pointer cursor.

-nolisten trans-type
disables a transport type. For example, TCP/IP connections can be disabled with -nolisten tcp. This option may
be issued multiple times to disable listening to different transport types.

-noreset
prevents a server reset when the last client connection is closed. This overrides a previous -terminate command
line option.

-p minutes
sets screen-saver pattern cycle time in minutes.

-pn permits the server to continue running if it fails to establish all of its well-known sockets (connection points
for clients), but establishes at least one. This option is set by default.

-nopn causes the server to exit if it fails to establish all of its well-known sockets (connection points for clients).

-r turns off auto-repeat.

r turns on auto-repeat.

-retro starts the stipple with the classic stipple and cursor visible. The default is to start with a black root win-
dow, and to suppress display of the cursor until the first time an application calls XDefineCursor(). For the
Xorg server, this also sets the default for the DontZap option to FALSE. For kdrive servers, this implies -zap.

-s minutes
sets screen-saver timeout time in minutes.

-su disables save under support on all screens.

-t number
sets pointer acceleration threshold in pixels (i.e. after how many pixels pointer acceleration should take
effect).

-terminate
causes the server to terminate at server reset, instead of continuing to run. This overrides a previous -noreset
command line option.

-to seconds
sets default connection timeout in seconds.

-tst disables all testing extensions (e.g., XTEST, XTrap, XTestExtension1, RECORD).

ttyxx ignored, for servers started the ancient way (from init).

v sets video-off screen-saver preference.

-v sets video-on screen-saver preference.

-wm forces the default backing-store of all windows to be WhenMapped. This is a backdoor way of getting backing-
store to apply to all windows. Although all mapped windows will have backing store, the backing store attribute
value reported by the server for a window will be the last value established by a client. If it has never been
set by a client, the server will report the default value, NotUseful. This behavior is required by the X proto-
col, which allows the server to exceed the client's backing store expectations but does not provide a way to tell
the client that it is doing so.

-wr sets the default root window to solid white instead of the standard root weave pattern.

-x extension
loads the specified extension at init. This is a no-op for most implementations.

[+-]xinerama
enables(+) or disables(-) the XINERAMA extension. The default state is platform and configuration specific.

SERVER DEPENDENT OPTIONS
Some X servers accept the following options:

-ld kilobytes
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.

-lf files
sets the number-of-open-files limit of the server to the specified number. A value of zero makes the limit as
large as possible. The default value of -1 leaves the limit unchanged.

-ls kilobytes
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.

-logo turns on the X Window System logo display in the screen-saver. There is currently no way to change this from a
client.

nologo turns off the X Window System logo display in the screen-saver. There is currently no way to change this from a
client.

-render default|mono|gray|color sets the color allocation policy that will be used by the render extension.

default selects the default policy defined for the display depth of the X server.

mono don't use any color cell.

gray use a gray map of 13 color cells for the X render extension.

color use a color cube of at most 4*4*4 colors (that is 64 color cells).

-dumbSched
disables smart scheduling on platforms that support the smart scheduler.

-schedInterval interval
sets the smart scheduler's scheduling interval to interval milliseconds.

XDMCP OPTIONS
X servers that support XDMCP have the following options. See the X Display Manager Control Protocol specification for
more information.

-query hostname
enables XDMCP and sends Query packets to the specified hostname.

-broadcast
enable XDMCP and broadcasts BroadcastQuery packets to the network. The first responding display manager will be
chosen for the session.

-multicast [address [hop count]]
Enable XDMCP and multicast BroadcastQuery packets to the network. The first responding display manager is cho-
sen for the session. If an address is specified, the multicast is sent to that address. If no address is speci-
fied, the multicast is sent to the default XDMCP IPv6 multicast group. If a hop count is specified, it is used
as the maximum hop count for the multicast. If no hop count is specified, the multicast is set to a maximum of 1
hop, to prevent the multicast from being routed beyond the local network.

-indirect hostname
enables XDMCP and send IndirectQuery packets to the specified hostname.

-port port-number
uses the specified port-number for XDMCP packets, instead of the default. This option must be specified before
any -query, -broadcast, -multicast, or -indirect options.

-from local-address
specifies the local address to connect from (useful if the connecting host has multiple network interfaces). The
local-address may be expressed in any form acceptable to the host platform's gethostbyname(3) implementation.

-once causes the server to terminate (rather than reset) when the XDMCP session ends.

-class display-class
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" (not a very useful value).

-cookie xdm-auth-bits
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 (not that it is very private, being on the command line!).

-displayID display-id
Yet another XDMCP specific value, this one allows the display manager to identify each display so that it can
locate the shared key.

XKEYBOARD OPTIONS
X servers that support the XKEYBOARD (a.k.a. "XKB") extension accept the following options. All layout files specified
on the command line must be located in the XKB base directory or a subdirectory, and specified as the relative path from
the XKB base directory. The default XKB base directory is /usr/lib/X11/xkb.

[+-]accessx [ timeout [ timeout_mask [ feedback [ options_mask ] ] ] ]
enables(+) or disables(-) AccessX key sequences.

-xkbdir directory
base directory for keyboard layout files. This option is not available for setuid X servers (i.e., when the X
server's real and effective uids are different).

-ardelay milliseconds
sets the autorepeat delay (length of time in milliseconds that a key must be depressed before autorepeat starts).

-arinterval milliseconds
sets the autorepeat interval (length of time in milliseconds that should elapse between autorepeat-generated key-
strokes).

-xkbmap filename
loads keyboard description in filename on server startup.

NETWORK CONNECTIONS
The X server supports client connections via a platform-dependent subset of the following transport types: TCPIP, Unix
Domain sockets, DECnet, and several varieties of SVR4 local connections. See the DISPLAY NAMES section of the X(7) man-
ual page to learn how to specify which transport type clients should try to use.

GRANTING ACCESS
The X server implements a platform-dependent subset of the following authorization protocols: MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1, XDM-
AUTHORIZATION-1, XDM-AUTHORIZATION-2, SUN-DES-1, and MIT-KERBEROS-5. See the Xsecurity(7) manual page for information on
the operation of these protocols.

Authorization data required by the above protocols 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 start-
ing), 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 connec-
tion setup information will be allowed access. See the Xau manual page for a description of the binary format of this
file. See xauth(1) for maintenance of this file, and distribution of its contents to remote hosts.

The X server also uses a host-based access control list for deciding whether or not 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 (e.g. expo.lcs.mit.edu) or a DECnet host-
name in double colon format (e.g. hydra::) or a complete name in the format family:name as described in the xhost(1) man-
ual page. There should be no leading or trailing spaces on any lines. For example:

joesworkstation
corporate.company.com
star::
inet:bigcpu
local:

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.

If the X FireWall Proxy (xfwp) is being used without a sitepolicy, host-based authorization must be turned on for clients
to be able to connect to the X server via the xfwp. If xfwp is run without a configuration file and thus no sitepolicy
is defined, if xfwp is using an X server where xhost + has been run to turn off host-based authorization checks, when a
client tries to connect to this X server via xfwp, the X server will deny the connection. See xfwp(1) for more informa-
tion about this proxy.

The X protocol intrinsically does not have any notion of window operation permissions or place any restrictions on what a
client can do; if a program can connect to a display, it has full run of the screen. X servers that support the SECURITY
extension fare better because clients can be designated untrusted via the authorization they use to connect; see the
xauth(1) manual page for details. Restrictions are imposed on untrusted clients that curtail the mischief they can do.
See the SECURITY extension specification for a complete list of these restrictions.

Sites that have better authentication and authorization systems might wish to make use of the hooks in the libraries and
the server to provide additional security models.

SIGNALS
The X server attaches special meaning to the following signals:

SIGHUP 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.

SIGTERM This signal causes the server to exit cleanly.

SIGUSR1 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 con-
necting to the server is possible.

FONTS
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.

The default font path is catalogue:/etc/X11/fontpath.d, built-ins .

A special kind of directory can be specified using the catalogue: prefix. Directories specified this way can contain sym-
links pointing to the real font directories. See the FONTPATH.D section for details.

The font path can be set with the -fp option or by xset(1) after the server has started.

FONTPATH.D
You can specify a special kind of font path in the form catalogue:<dir>. The directory specified after the catalogue:
prefix will be scanned for symlinks and each symlink destination will be added as a local fontfile FPE.

The symlink can be suffixed by attributes such as 'unscaled', which will be passed through to the underlying fontfile
FPE. The only exception is the newly introduced 'pri' attribute, which will be used for ordering the font paths specified
by the symlinks.

An example configuration:

75dpi:unscaled:pri=20 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi
ghostscript:pri=60 -> /usr/share/fonts/default/ghostscript
misc:unscaled:pri=10 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc
type1:pri=40 -> /usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1
type1:pri=50 -> /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1

This will add /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc as the first FPE with the attribute the attribute unscaled etc. This is function-
ally equivalent to setting the following font path:

/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled,
/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1,
/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1,
/usr/share/fonts/default/ghostscript

FILES
/etc/Xn.hosts Initial access control list for display number n

/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi
Bitmap font directories

/usr/share/fonts/X11/TTF,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1
Outline font directories

/tmp/.X11-unix/Xn Unix domain socket for display number n

/usr/adm/Xnmsgs Error log file for display number n if run from init(8)

/usr/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-errors Default error log file if the server is run from xdm(1)