Xforwarding doesn't allow for switching users

I'm ssh'd into a remote computer and xforwarding is working fine... but as soon as I "sudo su -" or "sudo su user2" it no longer Xforwards anything giving me the error:

X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication.
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: localhost:10.0

Any Ideas?

Thanks

1. Enable X-11 Forwarding in your client
2. Log in as your normal user
3. echo $DISPLAY to get the associated display
4. xauth list, find the display number which corresponds with what you found in #3 and copy it
5. Sudo to root xauth add <paste in what you copied from #4>
6. Now you can execute commands as root and will be able to se the X11 Forwarding connection

Before you sudo, do this:

$ xauth extract /tmp/xauthstuff $DISPLAY

After you sudo, do this:

# xauth merge /tmp/xauthstuff

Does this work for you?

PS remember to rm /tmp/xauthstuff afterwards

I don't have access to root account to do any of the above, so here is a work around that I used.

First, ssh to your account like you normally do and test everything is working.

ssh -Y <you>@<your_server>

I usually just fire up an XTerm to ensure I have connectivity. If all good, copy .XAuthority file that is in <you> home directory and put it in a public directory.

cp ~/.Xauthority /tmp/tempXAuth

Make sure you chmod 777 on that file in the public directory so that the sudo account can use it in the later step.

chmod 777 /tmp/tempXAuth

now sudo to the user you need to do work as

sudo su - <other_user>

once you are <other_user>, back up the existing .Xauthority and then copy the "good" one over.

cp ~/.Xauthority ~/.Xauthority.bak
cp /tmp/tempXAuth ~/.Xauthority

you should be able to run any X programs and have them authenticate with your current XServer session.