USB-SD creator is not able to run as root

jucaroba · November 17, 2016 at 10:27 AM

Using debian stable. Am I missing anything?

Code

jcromero@betelgeuse:~$ sudo LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Linux-64bit.bin
No protocol specified
QXcbConnection: Could not connect to display :0

**Klojum** · November 17, 2016 at 11:10 AM Official Post

Are you trying to run the LibreELEC USB-SD Creator from a SSH session, or from a terminal alone?
This tool needs a GUI, it's not a commandline tool.

jucaroba · November 17, 2016 at 5:52 PM

Quote from Klojum

Are you trying to run the LibreELEC USB-SD Creator from a SSH session, or from a terminal alone?
This tool needs a GUI, it's not a commandline tool.

No. I run it from an X terminal. When I run it as normal user, it starts perfectly (but has no permission to write to my SD, obviously)

**vpeter** · November 17, 2016 at 6:35 PM

Maybe you need to allow root to connect to a non-root user's X server. Like

Code

xhost +
sudo ./LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Linux-64bit.bin
xhost -

jucaroba · November 17, 2016 at 7:55 PM

Quote from vpeter
Maybe you need to allow root to connect to a non-root user's X server. Like
Code
xhost +
sudo ./LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator.Linux-64bit.bin
xhost -

Thanks, vpeter, that did the trick.

dahmage · November 29, 2016 at 4:42 PM

Quote from jucaroba

Thanks, vpeter, that did the trick.

I just had this issue after upgrading from fedora 24 to 25. the only difference i know of is that now i am using a Wayland session instead of X? this trick worked, but i wonder if it is a wayland related issue.

axel · December 21, 2016 at 3:17 PM

Quote from dahmage

I just had this issue after upgrading from fedora 24 to 25. the only difference i know of is that now i am using a Wayland session instead of X? this trick worked, but i wonder if it is a wayland related issue.

Yes, this completely has to do with Wayland, which is now the default graphical server in Fedora 25.
Wayland, by design, does not let another user (root in our case) access what our user is doing in their session on the graphical server. So when root tries to open its window in another user's (ie: our user's) graphical session, Wayland (rightly) denies it.

The fix suggested,

Code

xhost +

allows any and all users to access the current users' graphical session.

If you find this a bit much, you can allow only root to access your current session, with the following:

Code

xhost si:localuser:root

Once you've finished using the app you want as root, you can remove root from the list of allowed users with:

Code

xhost -si:localuser:root

Hope this helps. At the end of the day, a better solution (using the suggestions in this bug: Bug 1274451 – sudo with graphical apps doesn't work on wayland) should probably be used, as this is really just a workaround (and end-users shouldn't have to be doing this).