There was a known issue with xchroot v2.7.4 under Mageia 8: When xchroot did change the user no X-connection could be made without a manual xhost +SI:localuser:»targetUser« or xhost +local:. This was because Mageia did not provide an xauth token that matched the hostname likely due to an invalid /etc/hostname file. Now xchroot can generate an xauth token for the target user if none should be provided at invocation. The xauth mechanism was completely rewritten. It shall now be more stable. If there is a stale lock on the Xauthority file which makes xchroot hang you can now press Ctrl-C to force the retraction of this lock and make xchroot succeed (Otherwise xauth will display an error message after a while if it gives up on getting the lock.). Only the xauth token for the target hostname and the target display will be passed on to the chroot environment unless --alldisplays is given. The chroot environment will always have an xauth token even if the user should issue an xhost -local: later on.
Xchroot v2.7.4 implements some important bugfixes towards v2.7. Due to an apparent regression in sudo, xchroot as user appears to have been temporarily broken. At first I thought it was one of the configuration issues merely pertinent to my own system like the ssh user being deleted from /etc/passwd or some removed execution right of a shared library or /etc/init.d file (I did already tell whom to thank.). However as it seems this was in deed a regression of sudo. Can now be fixed by executing xchroot inst-root-sudo. The new and buggy mirrtmp behaviour of v2.7 has been temporarily undone defaulting to mntmp as before. Mounting of /etc/resolv.conf may be needed for internet access, mounting /boot/efi for installing the bootloader and initctl may help for systemctl suspend. new feature: minimal chroots featuring only a busybox: see 'how to create a chroot', last example.
If you wanna support the work for xchroot, any other of our programs, if you want more content translated into your own language or if you like new content you may donate. You have now the possibility to donate via bank transfer with IBAN/BIC, a way that shall always work for everyone. This is important if you like this web page since at the moment I can not even pay for the hosting costs from what I get. Visit the Contact page also linked from xchroot/#downloads to see more. Support is free and if an email should get lost, I do now also have a landline phone number for you.
xchroot v2.7 starts an own dbus session for the target user by default as many applications expect and as desktop environments like Xfce, Gnome or KDE require. Desktop file creation has been improved and is also used for exporting X-sessions like KDE or Gnome out of a chroot. Chroot escapes now do also work if an intermediately run program has closed the file descriptors so that you can also use it for desktop sessions. Another new feature is that xchroot can now also be used for merely switching the user with maintained X-access where no chroot is performed. This may be useful if you want to run your favourite browser cleanly separated with two different bookmark/history/other settings at the same time. The documentation about audio and user support as well as the intro has also been updated. /tmp mirroring has been made more secure by only exporting /tmp/.X11-unix by default. The old, possibly more compatible behaviour can be achieved with --on mirrtmp or permanently by adding mirrtmp to the MNTON variable definition at the beginning of the xchroot script. If multiple chroots to the same root and user occur, then the XAUTH-cookies for all chroots will now be merged into one file.
Es ist schon lange her seitdem ich an xchroot v2.5.3 gearbeitet habe. Letztes Jahr mußte ich die Entwicklung von xchroot komplett einstellen, da der Geheimdienst mir dies vereitelt hatte. Ich konnte einer Variable auf einer Zeile einen Wert zuweisen und die Variable hatte eine Zeile später nicht mehr denselben Wert - und das offline. Heute hatte ich zum Glück keine Probleme mehr mit xchroot. Jedoch bleibt die Entwicklung von a̅tea problematisch und zu gewissen Teilen verhindert. Viel schlimmer noch habe ich derzeit überhaupt keine Möglichkeit an meinem DualSat SAT-Solver weiterzuarbeiten. Das Veröffentlichen von normalen rss-Nachrichten wird für mich auch immer schwieriger. Inzwischen muß ich die große Mehrzahl dieser Nachrichten offline schreiben. Ein paar wenige habe ich mit Füllfeder am Papier und Wörterbüchern aus Papier zusammengesetellt. Nichtsdestoweniger ist es für Spanisch und Portugiesisch eine große Erleichterung wenn ich Vorlschläge von translate.google.com ansehen kann, was mit meinem Tablet meist noch möglich war. Kurz vor der COP26 hat man mir die Browser Firefox, Google Chrome und Falkon ausgeschalten um mich zu bedrohen. Derzeit verwende ich Epiphany und Midori. I hatte schon Angst auf große Teile des Webs nicht mehr zugreifen zu können, da mir usrprünglich kein alternativer, graphischer Browser mit Javascript bekannt war.
new features: escape from a chroot environment into the original root if not disabled, better desktop shortcut creation for chroot programs, many many bugfixes including mount mirroring: Since v2.5 it can automatically mount directories f.i. under /media directly into the chroot. View the first lines of the xchroot executable with less or a text editor to see the full changelog.
BugFixes towards v2.5: The user management was broken as we forgot to change $OPTARG into $optarg. xchroot can now be run directly as user without openroot macro. createstartup now also works for Xfce and other desktop environments, not only for Xfce. Unmounting on exit has been improved and should work correctly in all cases. You may now run a program like /dst/deb32/bin/hostname directly also if /dst instead of /dst/deb32 is a sudoers praefix. Alas we could not fully test this new version because our offline computer is under attack from western secret services. That is why we would highly estimate contributions/bugfixes by users. The program is already GPLv3.
