Fixing the X-font-server problem

This is a pre-fix dissemination of info (read "this isn't really tested yet").

It seems that the X-font-server binary shipped with the standard RH 6.0 release is intentionally broken. For "security reasons", the TCP bind was disabled. This means that any process trying to connect to the font server on the default socket, 7100, will fail. Please refer to Bugzilla Bug Report #2759 for more info on this.

To verify whether you are suffering from this problem, on your server system (not the Xterminal) do:-

		user@server%    fslsfonts -server localhost:7100
You should get a list of fonts returned. If, instead, you get the error
	_FSTransSocketINETConnect: Can't connect: errno = 111
then the TCP socket connection is disabled and you'll need to update to the latest xfs package, available from the Red Hat server (or any of the mirrors).

(To fix the SLXT font problem, you need only install the XFree86-xfs-3.3.5-0.6.0.i386.rpm package [assuming an i386 arch server]. Although I'd recommend upgrading all of the XFree86 packages listed, it isn't necessary for the SLXT fix.)

You will also need to specifically tell the new font server to listen on the default TCP port. To do this, add the line:-

	    port = 7100
in the /etc/X11/fs/config file and then restart the font server process:-

		root@server#   /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs  stop

		root@server#   /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs  start
You might also want to comment out these lines in /etc/rc.d/rc.xterm, as Red Hat 6.0 starts the font server process by default at boot time anyway:-
	    echo -en "X-Font-Server ";
	    Start_XFS;
Check that the fix has worked using the previously mentioned "fslsfonts" command.

Your SPARCterminal should now boot and start X11.

I'll push-out an updates package as soon as I've had a chance to test out the other 6.0 specific issues.

Late, Late News...

Wes Hosking (wes@atlantek.com.au) tried out the fix and discovered that it broke XDM on the screen attached to his server, because the unix:-1 socket stops working.

He reports that X can be started on the server again using:-

	startx -- -fp tcp/localhost:7100
Thanks for the feedback, Wes!


Last updated: $Date: 2003/05/18 08:25:02 $.
Gaijin@pobox.COM