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

June 8, 2013 147.5k 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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