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This page has been made to answer the questions related to running X ( XFree86 and XOrg ) in a Vserver.

Due to the wierdness in the ways that X uses it's terminology,

There are two main things you might want to do relating to X:

- Run an X server on the physical machine that the Vserver is running on, and log in on the local keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

- Connect from an Xserver on a different machine, and log into a desktop remotely on the Vserver.

Running an X server inside a vserver

Allow capability CAP_SYS_RAWIO. It can be set in the capabilities file or the vserver config depending on your util-vserver.

Set up a mouse device, such as /dev/psaux or /dev/input/mice

Set up a vc/tty device, such as /dev/tty7 or /dev/vc/7 (major 4, minor same as device). If you are running a main X server you might need to use 8 or 9 for the vc/tty device

Set up /dev/kmem (not 100% sure this is needed, don't think X has to have it to run) (note: Xorg on debian sid require a /dev/mem -- NebuchadnezzaR?)

Now just switch to a console, log in as root, enter your vserver and startx, a caveat on newer versions of vserver when switching between a vserver X server and the main server's X server you need to switch to a console first or you can lose access to the main server's X server.

You'll also need pts/pty devices to run things like xterm, but if you have ssh set up you probably already have them.

Running an X session on a vserver

For this, you don't need to assign any special capabilities, as "X" itself won't be running in the vserver - it will be running on the machine that you want the display from the vserver to appear on.

In the Vserver, install the xdm package - this is the process that listens on udp/177 for XMDCP requests. You can also use kdm, the package that comes with KDE, or gdm, for Gnome.

In the Vserver, install your desktop of choice. I used KDE.

Make sure that the you can run [xkg]dm in the vserver. [xkd]dm logs to /var/log, and you can run it with higher debug levels from the command line to work out any problems.

If your ?dm starts, and exits without any errors, this may mean that your greeter program isn't working.

I had to change /etc/kde/kdm/kdm-config and add the line: LISTEN 82.x.y.z to make it run on udp/177.