[R-SIG-Mac] loading Rcmdr, R-Tcl/Tk errors due to X11

[Thomas Lumley]

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005, stefano iacus wrote:
>
> I completely missed this point in James' mail...but now I read it :)
> I don't know if this helps or not but this my experience: I personally have 
> x11.app launched at boot and I reboot my pbook only when "software update" 
> asks me, otherwise my machine is always running (and occasionally sleeping).
> I change network settings 3 to 4 four times a day (at least in the last 
> month) and I never needed to restart X11.
>
> As I never experienced a failure I need some clarification from you: what I 
> understand from James' mail is that the problem arises if you start X11 after 
> changing network connection.

What I experience is that when I connect to a network via ethernet any X11 
that is already running will stop allowing connnections.  Switching 
between different wireless nodes doesn't seem to cause this.

> So, is this a X11 bug or what? If so, it is probably a good idea to fill a 
> bug report to apple.
> If not, please explain.

It is documented by Apple and therefore not a bug.
  http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1232.html  says

Q: Why can't I connect to the X Server after a network config change? It 
requires a restart of the X server.

A: This is expected behavior in the Xauthority authentication mechanism 
which X11 for Mac OS X uses by default. The problem is that Xauth uses two 
keys, the ip address and hostname of the system running the X server. But 
these keys don't get updated if you change the network configuration. You 
can disable authentication from the "Security" tab of X11.app's 
preferences. Be aware that doing so may create a security hole.


 	-thomas