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Manual: Xserver

XSERVER(1) General Commands Manual 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
passwords, 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
recommended 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. Where applicable, the X server notifies
systemd when it is ready to process requests.

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
providing the parameters described here, but the values provided via the command line options should override values
specified via other mechanisms.

:displaynumber
The X server runs as the given displaynumber, which by default is 0. If multiple X servers are to run simul‐
taneously on a host, each must have a unique display number. See the DISPLAY NAMES section of the X(7) man‐
ual 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 re‐
motely.

-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 SECU‐
RITY extension, if present, including generation and revocation of authorizations and violations of the secu‐
rity policy. 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.

-background none
Asks the driver not to clear the background on startup, if the driver supports that. May be useful for
smooth transition with eg. fbdev driver. For security reasons this is not the default as the screen contents
might show a previous user session.

-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.

+byteswappedclients
Allow connections from clients with an endianess different to that of the server. This is the default unless
-byteswappedclients is specified.

-byteswappedclients
Prohibit connections from clients with an endianess different to that of the server.

-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 pro‐
tocol. Not obeyed by all servers.

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

-displayfd fd
specifies a file descriptor in the launching process. Rather than specify a display number, the X server
will attempt to listen on successively higher display numbers, and upon finding a free one, will write the
display number back on this file descriptor as a newline-terminated string. The -pn option is ignored when
using -displayfd.

-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 config‐
uration 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 beep (bell) volume (allowable range: 0-100).

-fakescreenfps ps
sets fake presenter screen default fps (allowable range: 1-600).

-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.

-iglx Prohibit creating indirect GLX contexts. Indirect GLX is of limited use, since it lacks support for many
modern OpenGL features and extensions; it's slower than direct contexts; and it opens a large attack surface
for protocol parsing errors. This is the default unless +iglx is specified.

+iglx Allow creating indirect GLX contexts.

-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. Supported transport types
are platform dependent, but commonly include:
tcp TCP over IPv4 or IPv6
inet TCP over IPv4 only
inet6 TCP over IPv6 only
unix UNIX Domain Sockets
local Platform preferred local connection method

-listen trans-type
enables a transport type. For example, TCP/IP connections can be enabled with -listen tcp. This option may
be issued multiple times to enable listening to different transport types.

-noreset
prevents a server reset when the last client connection is closed. This overrides a previous -terminate com‐
mand 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 server with the classic stipple and cursor visible. The default is to start with a black root
window, and to suppress display of the cursor until the first time an application calls XDefineCursor(). For
kdrive servers, this implies -zap.

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

-su disables save under support on all screens.

-seat seat
seat to run on. Takes a string identifying a seat in a platform specific syntax. On platforms which support
this feature this may be used to limit the server to expose only a specific subset of devices connected to
the system.

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

-terminate [delay]
causes the server to terminate at server reset, instead of continuing to run. This overrides a previous
-noreset command line option. If a delay in seconds is specified, the server waits for at least the delay.
At the end of this grace period if no client is connected, the server terminates immediately.

-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.

-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.

-maxclients
64|128|256|512 Set the maximum number of clients allowed to connect to the X server. Acceptable values are
64, 128, 256 or 512.

-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
chosen for the session. If an address is specified, the multicast is sent to that address. If no address is
specified, 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 be‐
fore 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) implementa‐
tion.

-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 speci‐
fied 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
keystrokes).

-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: TCP/IP,
Unix Domain sockets, 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, SUN-DES-1, Host Access, and Server Interpreted. 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 starting), it reads this file. If this file contains any authorization records, the local host is not automati‐
cally 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 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 dis‐
play number of the server. Each line of the file should contain either an Internet hostname (e.g. expo.lcs.mit.edu)
or a complete name in the format family:name as described in the xhost(1) manual page. There should be no leading or
trailing spaces on any lines. For example:

joesworkstation
corporate.company.com
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.

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 con‐
nect; see the xauth(1) manual page for details. Restrictions are imposed on untrusted clients that curtail the mis‐
chief 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 de‐
faults. 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 connecting 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 /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:un‐
scaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:un‐
scaled,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi,/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi,built-ins .

A special kind of directory can be specified using the catalogue: prefix. Directories specified this way can contain
symlinks 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:. The directory specified after the cata‐
logue: 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 spec‐
ified 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 'unscaled', second FPE will be
/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi, also with the attribute 'unscaled' etc. This is functionally 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)

Manual: Xserver

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