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XHOST(1)		     General Commands Manual			XHOST(1)

NAME
     xhost - server access control program for X

SYNOPSIS
     xhost [[+-]name ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The xhost program is used to add and delete host names or user names to the
     list  allowed  to	make connections to the X server.  In the case of hosts,
     this provides a rudimentary form of privacy control and  security.   It  is
     only  sufficient  for  a workstation (single user) environment, although it
     does limit the worst abuses.  Environments which require more sophisticated
     measures should implement the user-based mechanism or use the hooks in  the
     protocol for passing other authentication data to the server.

OPTIONS
     Xhost  accepts the following command line options described below.  For se-
     curity, the options that affect access control may only  be  run  from  the
     "controlling  host".   For  workstations,	this  is the same machine as the
     server.  For X terminals, it is the login host.

     -help   Prints a usage message.

     [+]name
	     The given name (the plus sign is optional) is added to the list al-
	     lowed to connect to the X server.	The name can be a host name or a
	     complete name (See NAMES for more details).

     -name   The given name is removed from the list of allowed  to  connect  to
	     the  server.   The  name can be a host name or a complete name (See
	     NAMES for more details).  Existing connections are not broken,  but
	     new  connection attempts will be denied.  Note that the current ma-
	     chine is allowed to be removed; however, further  connections  (in-
	     cluding  attempts to add it back) will not be permitted.  Resetting
	     the server (thereby breaking all connections) is the  only  way  to
	     allow local connections again.

     +	     Access  is  granted  to  everyone,  even if they aren't on the list
	     (i.e., access control is turned off).

     -	     Access is restricted to only those on the list (i.e.,  access  con-
	     trol is turned on).

     nothing
	     If  no  command  line  arguments  are  given,  a message indicating
	     whether or not access control is currently enabled is printed, fol-
	     lowed by the list of those allowed to connect.  This  is  the  only
	     option  that  may	be used from machines other than the controlling
	     host.

NAMES
     A complete name has the syntax ``family:name'' where the  families  are  as
     follows:

     inet      Internet host (IPv4)
     inet6     Internet host (IPv6)
     dnet      DECnet host
     nis       Secure RPC network name
     krb       Kerberos V5 principal
     local     contains only one name, the empty string
     si        Server Interpreted

     The  family  is  case  insensitive.  The format of the name varies with the
     family.

     When Secure RPC is being  used,  the  network  independent  netname  (e.g.,
     "nis:unix.uid@domainname")  can be specified, or a local user can be speci-
     fied with just the username and a trailing at-sign (e.g., "nis:pat@").

     For backward compatibility with pre-R6 xhost, names that contain an at-sign
     (@) are assumed to be in the nis family.  Otherwise they are assumed to  be
     Internet addresses. If compiled to support IPv6, then all IPv4 and IPv6 ad-
     dresses  returned by getaddrinfo(3) are added to the access list in the ap-
     propriate inet or inet6 family.

     The local family specifies all the local connections at once. However,  the
     server interpreted address "si:localuser:username" can be used to specify a
     single local user. (See the Xsecurity(7) manual page for more details.)

     Server  interpreted  addresses  consist  of a case-sensitive type tag and a
     string representing a given value, separated  by  a  colon.   For	example,
     "si:hostname:almas"  is a server interpreted address of type hostname, with
     a value of almas.	 For more information on the available forms  of  server
     interpreted addresses, see the Xsecurity(7) manual page.

     The initial access control list for display number n may be set by the file
     /etc/Xn.hosts, where n is the display number of the server.  See Xserver(1)
     for details.

DIAGNOSTICS
     For  each	name  added to the access control list, a line of the form "name
     being added to access control list" is printed.  For each name removed from
     the access control list, a line of the form "name being removed from access
     control list" is printed.

SEE ALSO
     X(7), Xsecurity(7), Xserver(1), xdm(1), xauth(1), getaddrinfo(3)

ENVIRONMENT
     DISPLAY
	     to get the default host and display to use.

BUGS
     You can't specify a display on the command line because -display is a valid
     command line argument (indicating that you want to remove the machine named
     ``display'' from the access list).

     The X server stores network addresses, not host names, unless you	use  the
     server-interpreted  hostname  type address.  If somehow you change a host's
     network address while the server is still running, and you are using a net-
     work-address based form of authentication, xhost must be used  to	add  the
     new address and/or remove the old address.

AUTHORS
     Bob Scheifler, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science,
     Jim Gettys, MIT Project Athena (DEC).

X Version 11			   xhost 1.0.8				XHOST(1)

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