Sudo Plus X11 Forwarding

I originally published this script on my PeopleSoft Blog, but since it is as much Linux related, I thought it should go here, too.

The problem was that I was trying to install the Oracle Database via SSH using the GUI installer.  The sudo command was breaking my X11 forwarding.

I found the answer on the “Bag of Tricks” blog:

Bag of Tricks: x forwarding and sudo for oracle installs

Here’s my version:

#!/bin/sh

user=$1
if [ -z "$user" ]; then
 user=<default user>
fi

displayNum=`echo $DISPLAY | sed -e 's/^.*://' -e 's/\.[0123456789]*//'`
echo "Display # = $displayNum"
cookie=`xauth list | grep ":$displayNum"`
echo "Cookie = $cookie"
cookiename=`echo $cookie | sed 's/\s*MIT-MAGIC.*$//'`
echo "Cookie Name: $cookiename"
echo "user = $user"
sudo -u $user bash -c "xauth list; xauth add $cookie; bash; xauth remove $cookiename"