timeout in locking authority file /home/username/.Xauthority

June 8, 2013 159.7k views
pablo
By:
pablo
Whenever I ssh in to my droplet (puTTY), Ubuntu 12.04 spits out: /usr/bin/xauth: timeout in locking authority file /home/username/.Xauthority Does anyone know how I should address this? Thanks!
1 comment
  • jcinalberta November 13, 2016

    Hola Pablo,

    Esto tratando de instalar en ubuntu un desktop. Estoy usando puTTY para conectarme a un server con ubuntu 14.04.
    xauth: timeout in locking authority file /home/ubuntu/.Xauthority
    I did:

    1 ) cd /home/ubuntu
    mv .Xauthority .Xauthority.old
    touch .Xauthority
    SUDO chown machine:machine .Xauthority

    2) cd /home/user
    ls -a -lh
    SUDO chown user:user .Xau*

    but still no good results, any idea?

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12 Answers
kamaln7 MOD June 8, 2013
Try running sudo rm /home/username/.Xauthority
Reply
pablo June 10, 2013
@Kamal,

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I tried that; rebooted the droplet, but the error message still pops up.

Do you have any other ideas?
Reply
kamaln7 MOD June 11, 2013
Try this, Pablo: http://askubuntu.com/a/166115
Reply
pablo June 13, 2013
Holy $H!T Kamal;

It worked like a charm!!!! You're a genius... or, a really good Googler! (Is that even a word?)

In all seriousness, thanks for taking the time to help me out.

-Pablo
Reply
kamaln7 MOD June 14, 2013
Awesome!! Really glad to hear that :]
Reply
bose May 23, 2014
Tu maquina inicial le hayas puesto #xhost +
En tu maquina donde te conectas verifica
Que el /etc/selinux/config este como permissive o disable
Reply
solomon.j.sands May 29, 2014
Kamal Nasser had it right the first time, the only thing is that you have to do it from a local console. If you do it whilst ssh-ing in then any Xauth you create during that session will have the same ownership issues.
Reply
srachendrarwl May 12, 2015

can anybody help me to get what does ?—— ?? ? ? ?selinux means in below
[oracle@relxmedia01 /]$ ls -lrth
total 14G
?——— ? ? ? ? ? selinux
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 srv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 media
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4.0K Oct 3 2011 usr
drwx—— 2 root root 16K Oct 18 2011 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Oct 18 2011 tftpboot

Reply
srachendrarwl May 12, 2015

can anybody tells me what does ? ———– ? ? ? ?selinux means in below output

[oracle@relxmedia01 /]$ ls -lrth
total 14G
?——— ? ? ? ? ? selinux
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 srv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 media
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4.0K Oct 3 2011 usr
drwx—— 2 root root 16K Oct 18 2011 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Oct 18 2011 tftpboot

Reply
srachendrarwl May 12, 2015

can anybody tells me what does ? ———– ? ? ? ?selinux means in below output

[oracle@relxmedia01 /]$ ls -lrth
total 14G
?——— ? ? ? ? ? selinux
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 srv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 media
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4.0K Oct 3 2011 usr
drwx—— 2 root root 16K Oct 18 2011 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Oct 18 2011 tftpboot

Reply
srachendrarwl May 13, 2015

can anybody tells me what does ? ———– ? ? ? ?selinux means in below output

[oracle@relxmedia01 /]$ ls -lrth
total 14G
?——— ? ? ? ? ? selinux
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 srv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 17 2010 media
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4.0K Oct 3 2011 usr
drwx—— 2 root root 16K Oct 18 2011 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Oct 18 2011 tftpboot

Reply
riahc4 August 26, 2016

Im having the same issue.

My username is bob and I did:

cd /home/bob
mv .Xauthority .Xauthority.old
touch .Xauthority
chown bob:bob .Xauthority

But nothing. Restarted vncserver, same error and now I cant use VNC.

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