xvfb-run

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 2002-02-21
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NAME

xvfb-run - run specified X client or command in a virtual X server environment

SYNOPSIS

xvfb-run [ command ]

DESCRIPTION

xvfb-run is a wrapper for the Xvfb(1) command which simplifies the task of running commands (typically an X client, or a script containing a list of clients to be run) within a virtual X server environment.

xvfb-run sets up an X authority file called Xauthority in the current working directory, writes a cookie to it (see xauth(1)) and then starts an Xvfb server as a background process using server number 99, with TCP port listening turned off. The process ID of Xvfb is stored for later use. After three seconds (to give the server time to initialize and start listening for connections), the specified command is run using the X display corresponding to the Xvfb server just started and the X authority file created earlier. The command is also echoed to standard output for convenience in Makefile-based invocations of. xvfb-run.

When the command exits, its status is saved, the Xvfb server is killed (using the process ID stored earlier), the X authority cookie removed, and the authority file deleted. xvfb-run then exits with the exit status of command.

xvfb-run requires the xauth(1) command to function. If xauth is not available, xvfb-run will issue an error message and exit with status 99.

ENVIRONMENT

None.

INPUT FILES

None.

OUTPUT FILES

Xauthority: is created (and deleted) in the current working directory to store the X authority cookies used by the Xvfb server and client(s) run under it.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

It might be nice if xvfb-run support command-line options to support specification of the display number to use, whether TCP port listening should be enabled in the X server, the name of the X authority file to use, the length of the delay before the client is started, and the keyspace of the X authority cookie (XDM-AUTHORIZATION-1 versus MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1, for instance.)

AUTHOR

xfvb-run was written by Branden Robinson and Jeff Licquia for Progeny Linux Systems, Inc., and the Debian Project.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 23:32:34 GMT, April 19, 2024