starting xconsole on desktop

S

sidetone

Is it possible to start xconsole(1) on the desktop? It can be turned by setting it on from XDM. I may have to do this. For convenience, I want to be able to turn it on and off from the desktop, also without restarting my window manager.

xconsole &bg
Code: 
couldn't open console
xconsole -file /var/log/dmesg.today & bg
Code: 
Couldn't open /var/log/dmesg.today
xconsole -file /dev/console didn't show anything.
doas xconsole
Code: 
No protocol specified
Error: Can't open display: :0

Is there another way for the latest output of dmesg to be scrolled to a terminal on my desktop?

less -f /dev/console from root showed nothing. I had to pkill it, to get out of it.
cat /dev/console from root didn't show anything either.


These are older threads on it: Thread cant-run-xconsole-as-non-root-user.61022 (2017), Thread xconsole-failure-in-8-0.9969/ (2010)
 
I got something that would be temporary,
chmod g+r dmesg.today
It still didn't work, as it only output something from dmesg, but not anything that can be used.

Tried temporarily adding this permission to /dev/console, but it didn't work right. If that worked, it would be set in devd.
 
fbtab(5)

docs.freebsd.org

Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD

Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org

Q: When I run xconsole, I get ``Couldn't open console''.
Click to expand...
A: If you start X with startx, the permissions on /dev/console will not get changed, resulting in things like xterm -C and xconsole not working.
This is because of the way console permissions are set by default. On a multi-user system, one doesn't necessarily want just any user to be able to write on the system console. For users who are logging directly onto a machine with a VTY, the fbtab file exists to solve such problems.
In a nutshell, make sure an uncommented line of the form
/dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/console

is in /etc/fbtab and it will ensure that whomever logs in on /dev/ttyv0 will own the console.
Click to expand...
Thanks,

I need to try that. I posted it here, bc it's FreeBSD docs.


Andrey Lanin said:
I found this (very old) -
https://docs.freebsd.org/doc/3.3-RELEASE/usr/share/doc/faq/x.html
search for "Q: When I run xconsole"
There is a link from there - https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?fbtab

I haven't tried.
Click to expand...
 
sidetone,

I tried.
I removed a comment from '/dev/console'-related lines in /etc/fbtab and /etc/syslog.conf.
After that xconsole started ok, but nothing is displayed there.

Then I did the following (as stated in /etc/syslog.conf):
Code: 
# touch /var/log/console.log
# chmod 644 /var/log/console.log
# /etc/rc.d/syslogd restart
(the recommended /var/log/console.log permissions are 600, but I set 644)

And then in terminal :
Code: 
[lanin@freebsd ~]$ tail -F /var/log/console.log
Jun 16 17:54:57 freebsd kernel: Jun 16 17:54:57 freebsd syslogd: exiting on signal 15

In general, I personally prefer the following - just run in the terminal 'tail -F /var/log/messages' :
Code: 
[lanin@freebsd ~]$ tail -F /var/log/messages
Jun 16 16:55:30 freebsd upsmon[1555]: UPS pw9130@localhost is unavailable
Jun 16 16:55:35 freebsd upsmon[1555]: Poll UPS [pw9130@localhost] failed - Data stale
Jun 16 16:56:07 freebsd syslogd: last message repeated 6 times
Jun 16 16:58:08 freebsd syslogd: last message repeated 23 times
Jun 16 16:58:18 freebsd syslogd: last message repeated 2 times
Jun 16 16:58:22 freebsd upsd[1542]: mainloop: Interrupted system call
Jun 16 16:58:22 freebsd upsd[2075]: /usr/local/etc/nut/upsd.conf is world readable
Jun 16 16:58:22 freebsd upsd[2075]: /usr/local/etc/nut/upsd.users is world readable
Jun 16 16:58:23 freebsd upsmon[1555]: Poll UPS [pw9130@localhost] failed - Write error: Broken pipe
Jun 16 16:58:28 freebsd upsmon[1555]: Communications with UPS pw9130@localhost established
Jun 16 17:22:53 freebsd su[2174]: BAD SU lanin to root on /dev/pts/3
Jun 16 17:34:39 freebsd su[2216]: lanin to root on /dev/pts/1
Jun 16 17:37:20 freebsd su[2246]: BAD SU lanin to root on /dev/pts/5
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: VERIFY OK: depth=1, CN=server
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: VERIFY KU OK
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: Validating certificate extended key usage
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: ++ Certificate has EKU (str) TLS Web Server Authentication, expects TLS Web Server Authentication
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: VERIFY EKU OK
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: VERIFY OK: depth=0, CN=server
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: Outgoing Data Channel: Cipher 'AES-256-CBC' initialized with 256 bit key
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: Outgoing Data Channel: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: Incoming Data Channel: Cipher 'AES-256-CBC' initialized with 256 bit key
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: Incoming Data Channel: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
Jun 16 17:43:02 freebsd openvpn[1596]: Control Channel: TLSv1.3, cipher TLSv1.3 TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, peer certificate: 2048 bit RSA, signature: RSA-SHA256
Jun 16 17:54:57 freebsd syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Jun 16 17:54:57 freebsd syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
Jun 16 17:59:20 freebsd kernel: pid 2398 (gnome-photos), jid 0, uid 1001: exited on signal 5
...

EDIT: ...and removed a comment from line starting with 'console.info...' (in /etc/syslog.conf)
EDIT2: to test, run a new terminal, and type in it:
Code: 
echo "Hi" > /dev/console
A new line will appear in the terminal in which the 'tail -F /var/log/console.log' command is run.
 
Anybody ever figure this out. I get a console when I run xdm and start xfce that shows me console messages. But, if I add:
Code: 
xconsole -geometry 480x100-0-0 -daemon -notify -verbose -fn -exitOnFail &

to .xinitrc and startx, I get an xconsole that says "Couldn't open console.
 
I do not get deep enough into how ttys, console works. But reading the source of xconsole it should be noted, that after opening /dev/console for read/write (that is for the change of access rights needed), it then tries to redirect output from to pty, and fails there, obviously because of privileges lack.
Roughly saying, for now the way to run xconsole -- start it by root user ( su, sudo etc.)
 
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