Xauth++: C++ wrapper for Xauthority (Xau)

Description

Xauth++ provides a C++ interface to Xauthority by wrapping libXau.

Features

• Xauthority file I/O
• Automatic generation of MIT Magic Cookies
• Easy-to-use object-oriented API

Licensing

All source files are distributed under the GNU LGPL except the example file, examples/testxauth.cc, which is distributed under the GNU GPL.

Usage

For example usage, see examples/testxauth.cc.

Compile and run with:

g++ -Wall -pedantic -g -DHAVE_GCRYPT=1 -o testxauth examples/testxauth.cc \
src/xauthxx.cc -I src \
    `pkg-config --cflags --libs xau` `libgcrypt-config --cflags --libs`

Warning: It will create two new files in the working directory: Xauthority-1 and Xauthority-2.

Status

Functional but not feature-complete compared to libXau. Feel free to contribute!

Known Problems

The API is not documented, but the example file should be self-explanatory.

Usage Examples

Compiling and Linking

Just copy src/xauthxx.h and src/xauthxx.cc in your source directory.

Include Xauth++ header in your source file:

#include "xauthxx.h"

With libgcrypt Support for Magic Cookie Generation

Compile:

g++ -O2 -Wall -g -c `pkg-config --cflags xau` `libgcrypt-config --cflags` -DHAVE_GCRYPT=1 xauthxx.cc

Link:

g++ -o <your_program> <your_objects> xauthxx.o `pkg-config --libs xau` `libgcrypt-config --libs`

Without libgcrypt support

Compile:

g++ -O2 -Wall -g -c `pkg-config --cflags xau` xauthxx.cc

Link:

g++ -o <your_program> <your_objects> xauthxx.o `pkg-config --libs xau`

You will not be able to generate Magic Cookies automatically without libgcrypt.

Typical Usage Scenario

Creating a Magic Cookie

To automatically generate a Magic Cookie:

Xau::MagicCookie mcookie;

To create a cookie from its hexadecimal representation:

Xau::MagicCookie mcookie("bfe6e9ebfadfd8c17b59efe936b92783");

Adding Xauth entries in the user default files

Xau::Display display(2);    // we will add new entries for display :2
Xau::XauthList auth_list;   // derives from std::list
auth_list.load_from_file(); // load from default file (~/.Xauthority)
auth_list.push_back(Xau::Xauth(Xau::LocalAddress(), display, mcookie));
auth_list.push_back(Xau::Xauth(Xau::InternetAddress(127,0,0,1), display, mcookie));
auth_list.write_to_file();

• When using Xau::LocalAddress() with no parameters, the default local hostname obtained with gethostname() is used. You can always specify an optional hostname: Xau::LocalAddress("myhost").
• Xau::InternetAddress() also accepts a std::string argument, e.g. Xau::InternetAddress("192.168.1.1")

Removing Xauth entries for a particular cookie

If we want to remove all the entries with the particular cookie mcookie:

Xau::XauthList auth_list;
auth_list.load_from_file();
auth_list.remove(mcookie);
auth_list.write_to_file();

If we want to remove entries with the cookie mcookie on the display :2:

Xau::XauthList auth_list;
auth_list.load_from_file();
auth_list.remove(Xau::Display(2) && mcookie);
auth_list.write_to_file();