gentoo-overlay/metadata/news/2020-06-24-xorg-server-dropping-default-suid/2020-06-24-xorg-server-dropping-default-suid.en.txt

Title: xorg-server dropping default suid
Author: Piotr Karbowski <slashbeast@gentoo.org>
Posted: 2020-06-24
Revision: 3
News-Item-Format: 2.0
Display-If-Installed: x11-base/xorg-server

Starting 2020-07-15, stable keyworded x11-base/xorg-server will default
to using the logind interface instead of suid by default. resulting in
better security by default through running the server as a regular user
instead of root. However, this will require our users to use a logind
provider such as elogind or systemd. The systemd users and those who are
not using systemd but use desktop profiles can stop reading here, as
they already have a logind provider enabled.

Others, who have neither systemd or desktop profiles enabled will be
required to globally enable 'elogind' USE flag and update the system

    # emerge --newuse @world

Afterwards, one will need to re-login, so the PAM can assign a seat. One
can confirm that a seat has been assigned upon login by running:

    $ loginctl user-status

Users who do not wish to use logind interface or have rare hardware that
does not use KMS and because of that, require root privileges to
operate, can manually re-enable 'suid' and disable 'elogind' USE flags
in order to preserve the previous behavior. However, please note that
this is heavily discouraged to run X server as root due to security
reasons. The 'suid' USE flag will remain as optional opt-in for the need
of legacy hardware.